My primary way of determining value for money, especially when it comes to media like DVDs and music CDs is hours of entertainment vs cost. For example new film DVDs in the UK tend to cost around £16.00 and they tend to last around 2 hours. If you just watch the film once that works out to £8.00 per hour of entertainment. Personally, I watch films only occasionally so to me that is not good value. However I recently bought a boxset for £20.00 which had over 40 hours of viewing time. That worked out to less than a pound per hour I was entertained. Bargain!

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Beware of special offers, price cuts, and bargains. Businesses are there to take your custom, there is always some benefit to them for any bargain they offer. There is a large customer base out there who will be influenced by a 10% off, or a 3-for-2 and miss out on what the real saving to them is. Sometimes they will even buy something just because it’s on special offer. Remember, you might save a bit with special offers but you will save even more by not buying it in the first place. If you need the item, great, you’ve saved yourself a few pounds. Otherwise don’t let all those special offer signs and adverts overrule your frugal decision making.

Over at The Simple Dollar there is quite an interesting article on frugal living and how to get over how overwhelming it can seem by taking several small steps instead of making big changes to your lifestyle. Ten suggestions have been made that you can try out for a week. The idea is that at the end of the seven days, you will hopefully find what meshes with your life, what adjustments you can freely make and what sort of expenses you can do without. Below are my favorite tips from the article with my own additional thoughts on how to implement them.

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ConsumerReports.org has provided twenty simple tips to save energy, thus saving money and maybe even the world. I find the points quite useful because they are easy to implement but by doing every point you can make a big difference.

Wash clothes in cold water. You might guess that most of the energy used by a washing machine goes into vigorously swishing the clothes around. In fact, about 90 percent of it is spent elsewhere, heating the water for the load. You can save substantially by washing and rinsing at cooler temperatures. Warm water helps the suds to get at the dirt, but cold-water detergents will work effectively for just about everything in the hamper.

It’s that time of year again when people start or go back to university and college so it seems like the ideal time to cover some pointers on how to cope, particularly in financial terms. There are plenty of traps you can fall into it if you are not careful, but thankfully, if you are clever with your money you can still make the most of your student life without crippling yourself financially.

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