Yesterday I was the featured speaker at the Women’s Business Forum, a local networking group for women business owners. My talk focused on how you can apply Suddenly Frugal principles to a business, and save money in the process. I got terrific feedback from the attendees (about 100 people), and it made me think that I should start pursuing paid speaking opportunities so I can bring my frugal message to various audiences–Suddenly Frugal for Business, Suddenly Frugal for Teachers, Suddenly Frugal for Lawyers, etc.

I thought that my blog readers would appreciate hearing this advice, especially if they are business owners themselves.

Because the talk was kind of long, I’m breaking it into two parts. Today is part one; I’ll continue on Monday with part two, since I have to take a break on Friday to publish Freebie Friday.

1. Add money back into your pocket whenever possible.

• Do you take your ink cartridges to Staples for recycling? If you don’t, you’re missing out on $20 a month you could be funneling back into your business. Staples gives you $2 back, as a Staples Rewards Member, for every ink cartridge you recycle through them, up to 10 ink cartridges a month.
• What about rebates? Have you bought anything lately that came with a rebate (office equipment, new phone) and you thought, “Oh, it’s just not worth the trouble?” Well, you may not make back your hourly rate but to give up “free” money is insane. The last time I got a new cell phone, I was eligible for a $50 rebate. You can bet I took the 20 minutes I needed to get my money back. Heck, that works out to $150 an hour! Many of these companies let you do rebates online so there’s no fussing with copying receipts and cutting out UPC codes.
• Are you making money off of your old office equipment? Apple with give you dollars off the purchase of a new Apple product when you bring your old Apple product in for recycling. Other big-box stores that sell equipment do the same. When in doubt sell old office equipment on Craigslist to bring in extra cash, or, worst-case scenario, give it away on Freecycle. On the flip side you can use Freecycle to get free stuff for your business. Bottom line: if you’re paying for trash hauling, you should be keeping as much out of the waste stream as possible so that you’re not paying for items you no longer need because of their weight in the trash.
• Do you follow green practices that save money? I always print drafts of things I’m writing on recycled paper–whether it be paper I received in a press kit or a letter from my daughter’s school. Have you switched out all your light bulbs for CFLs? Do you turn off lights when you leave an office? Are you switching off equipment when you’re not using it? Why run up your electricity bill in your office unnecessarily?
• Are you collecting and counting spare change? Coinstar says that the average home has $90 in loose change in it at any given time. If you’re loosey-goosey with loose change–maybe you dump it in the cup holder of your car every time you come out of a store or pull away from the Starbucks drive through–take some time in the next week and gather up all that loose change. Then count it up. The last few times I’ve done this, I’ve found as much as $60 in loose change–which is embarrassing to admit but, there, I did it. You can count your own change, bring it to your bank (some credit unions have coin-counting machines that customers can use for free), or dump it in a Coinstar machine, though if you don’t select a gift card for your payout, you’ll pay a percentage of your coin bounty back to Coinstar.

2. Stop buying food out. Speaking of Starbucks–or Wawa or Dunkin Donuts–how many times in the past 7 days have you stopped at one of these (or a similar kind of) location to get a cup of coffee or something to drink?You may have spent what amounts to chump change but that chump change adds up over time to some pretty significant numbers. Let’s take Wawa coffee, which is about $2 a cup (if you get the really big one). Every morning of every week, and that’s $10 a week or $40 a month or $480 a year. What about lunch? Drop $5 for a Wawa hoagie every day, and you’re looking at almost $1,000 a year spent on something you could easily make at home. I realize that this notion of making your coffee at home or bringing your own lunch isn’t rocket science–and you’ve probably all heard this advice before–but how many of you are putting it into practice?

3. Do you use your associations and memberships to their full advantage? Are you members of any groups that get your discounts–and you’re not taking them? This could be a professional organization, alumni association, or even a credit union.

4. Have you tried bartering? Sometimes the money just isn’t there when you need to get something done, and that’s where bartering comes in. Bartering is a great way for you to get a service for free from someone for whom you can also give a service, for free. Just make sure that what you’re giving each other is similar in value. Also, check out a blog posting on my Suddenly Frugal blog on writing a barter agreement that benefits all involved.

Tune back in on Monday for the second half of my talk.