Weddingbee boards

Cut open your lotion bottles when the lotion starts running out. There is easily another week's worth of lotion in there, stuck to the sides. Lotion is expensive and it lasts much longer this way! Keep the cut bottle in a plastic baggie to keep it from drying out.

i totally agree with chelseamorning on the lotion thing.. the little straw doesn't go to the bottom either.  I have a least 4 or 5 days of 2 applications of lotion left in the bottle.

I am crazy with groceries.  Look thru adds, make list, cut coupons, go to multiple stores sometimes.

We prepare our own breakfast lunch and dinner - saves tons. 

We cook in bulk.  My FI will make a large meatloaf and eat the leftovers for two days.  Saves on cooking time, saves on bulk meat & on number of meals that need to be prepared.  But where we save the most money is on things like chili, soup lasagna, enchiladas.. we make a TON and freeze all the left overs.  It's lunches all packed to go, or dinners for a night you don't feel like cooking.

Turn down the heat.  We lived all winter with our heat set at 60!  And 58 over night.  We have an electric blanket on the bed, a heater would run in the room for an hour before bed.  We put up drapes between the first and second floors to keep the heat from escaping thru the roof.  We put plastic on all the window & bean bags/ door guards on all the other gaps, then cuddled under blankets on the couch.

Turn off the air.  Run a couple fans & get a cross breeze across your house.  Huge savings in the summer.

Combine trips.  If you have to go to the mall, the grocery store, the hair dresser, the post office and the drug store - do them all in the same trip.  It saves gas & time.

Stay out of stores.  If you go in w/o a list, and allow yourself to shop,  you will buy things you don't really need, but what you want.. it's hard to resist... I stay away from Target!

Repair your clothes:  If a button pops off, or the hem falls on your pants..don't buy another pair, learn how to fix it, saves a ton!

Don't buy clothes that are dry clean only if you can avoid it.  Much cheaper to run a load of laundry (full loads run in cold are cheaper and better for the environment) than to go to the dry cleaners.

If you like to go to the movies alot as a date thing - subscribe to netflix.  9 dollar a month is what you pay for the program, or one movie theater ticket.  Pop up your own popcorn & even pour yourself a glass of wine, and you are WAY ahead.

That's what I have for now!

For the wedding:

If you want a few things outside of your budget, DIY can be a really good option. I wanted pocketfold invites, and making them was really cheap as compared to ordering. But save your effort for real savings. Unless you are doing a ton of something, a DIY project to make a $10 item for $8 may not be worth your sanity.

Not doing it at all is still cheaper than DIY. Cut out things that don't matter to you. Personally, I don't care about toasting flutes and preserving my bouquet, as examples. You don't have to have these things.

Cutting the guest list is still the easiest way to save money. You may have a few people freak, but normal sane people don't expect to be invited to the wedding of casual friends. Don't invite a ton of people because 10% are crazy.