One of my most popular posts, Why I Don’t Comment On Blogger Blogs, talks about a couple of reasons why people persist with Blogger blogs and the main reason has to be that it’s free. Although there may be a few bloggers using this platform who are doing quite well with it, I put to you that they could be doing so much better if they hosted their own blog with their very own domain.

To all those people out there who are sitting on the fence wondering if they should take the leap to hosting their own blog but are being held back because of the cost factor I would like to list my top ten ways of saving money. If you were to follow these tips you could easily invest the money saved into starting your very own self hosted blog.

So, how much do you have to save? Well, for a measly $6.95 per month you could use BlueHost, which is the host I use for this blog. I’ve used several hosts and I’ve found them to be the best and their CPU Throttling feature is an added bonus, not to mention that you also get a free domain for life as part of your membership and your own domain is a great way to build your brand.

OK, enough of that, here’s the top 10 ways for saving money.

1. Give up smoking: Honestly, health risks aside giving up smoking could save you a fortune. If you smoked a pack of cigarettes a day at a cost of $11.50 a pack you would have spent $4,197.50 in a year. When you consider your hosting package for the same year would have cost you $83.40 you would have $4114.10 up your sleeve.
2. Electricity Costs: Changing your normal light bulbs for the newer fluorescent lamps could save you up to $10-$50 per year.
3. Heating / Cooling costs: Setting your thermostat a few degrees lower in winter and a few degree higher in summer can also save you a fair bit of money. Having your home insulated,closing curtains and plugging up leaks will also add to your savings.
4. Water Costs: Having shorter showers, installing water saving shower heads and reducing the thermostat on your water heater will also save you a nice wad of money.
5. Eating Out: Cutting back on the amount of times you eat out can save you heaps. If you’re in the habit of buying your lunch consider taking a home made lunch and watch your savings grow. Not only that but you will probably eat a lot healthier.
6. Consolidate Your Loans: If you have more than one loan then I suggest you consolidate them all into one loan with the cheapest rate you can find. This includes your credit card debts which normally have a very high interest rate. If you find it difficult to control your credit card expenditure then I suggest cutting them up and relying only on cash.
7. Minimize Car Usage: Try walking to the local shops instead of using your car, not only will you save money but your health and fitness will improve. When you do use your car drive economically to minimize the amount of fuel you would use.
8. Buy only what you can consume: I know some people go crazy when they see certain items on special and so they buy up not realizing that they’ve bought more than they can consume meaning they have to throw the excess away. This is a dreadful waste so make sure you check expiry dates and don’t buy more than you need. You don’t need to worry about things like toilet paper and stuff so you can buy up on these items.
9. Shop around: I save heaps of money by just shopping around for the best deal and this is so much easier now that we have the Internet.
10. Always use a shopping list: This can be used in conjunction with #9 and is important because you will save heaps by not buying impulse lines and things you don’t need if you stick to a shopping list.
11. Take coffee from home: Coffee is a huge industry and rightfully so as there is a huge markup on a cup of coffee and every time you buy a cup you’re lining someone’s pocket. Taking coffee from home can be a huge money saver, and if you’re a big coffee drinker bring a thermos full to work.

Yeah, I know I said I would only give 10 ways to save money but seeing as how not everyone smokes I thought I would stick in an extra one. As you can see, buy following these simple steps you can easily afford to use BlueHost to host your own blog, and if you consistently provide good content and use services such as adsense you will soon find that your blog will earn enough to pay it’s own way and usually enough for a little extra and so you can use all the extra money that you’ve saved to help paying off your loans thereby saving even more money.

OK, that was enough stressful reading for one day. You may want to read something a little more lighthearted like my post on Taking Off Your Clothes For The Greater Good where I show you how going naked can solve all the world’s problems. There were a few comments about being too cold and I wonder if there are any thermal paints that could be used which could give body art a whole new meaning. Just to put you in the mood here is a photo of a pretty gal wearing nothing but body paint, yep she is totally naked and the remarkable artist is Mark Reid.

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