September is rolling to a stop soon and I was thinking about all the things our family has done this month- and one of the things we've done is save some money. Which is good, because we're going to need it. ;)

I thought I would set aside a blog post each month to share how we've saved money during the course of a month. So keep your eyes open for that.

Today I am sharing four ways we saved in September and one thing we actually spent money on that will save us in the future.

1. We signed up for auto pay

This actually ended up putting about $20 a month back into our pockets. We signed up for autopay with our Internet and cell phone providers.

Our internet provider will knock $10 off our monthly bill for signing up. This is something we had done in the past, but our provider conveniently forgot to mention it expired after one year and would need to be re-upped.

It took me several months to notice we were no longer getting a discount and that a bill kept coming. I just blindly paid it-- hey, I've had a lot going on!

Our cell phone provider also offered us $5 off each line for auto pay. So that saved us an additional $10!

2. I found a solution instead of shopping

Here is something I will confess. I love high-end linens. I just can't stand scratchy, cheap sheets. So I have really good sheets on my bed. Luckily they were a gift. But they start to pull or peel, you know what I mean when you get those fussy balls on clothes and bedding. It felt like sand in the bed.

I was going to price a new set of sheets when I remembered my handy little sweater shaver. I pulled that sucker our and "shaved" my sheets for a smooth and delightful night sleep!

Sometimes the solution is right in front of you. It really does remind me of that old saying "Make do, do without..."

3. We had a free date night

Thanks to a Swagbucks gift card, Jason and I were able to enjoy a much-needed date night at Starbucks. We both enjoyed a pumpkin beverage (when it was 90 degrees outside!!!) for free.

If you don't know what Swagbucks is, it's free. You can earn points for taking quizzes, watching videos or using it as a search engine. Then you cash those points in for free gift cards. I was able to snag a $35 gift card for FREE.

4. I did a little Insurance audit

Okay. So this doesn't save me money NOW, but it will in the future. Not to mention countless man hours.

Where we live we are required to have a wind policy separate from our home-owners insurance. This is because we live in a place that has hurricanes. We replaced our roof earlier this year after, it was a big effort on our part, but it's gorgeous.

Recently we got a letter from our wind carrier saying our roof had only 40% of its life left, which would greatly impact us should something happen and blow our roof off or knock our house down. (I might be exaggerating a wee bit.)

So I contacted my insurance provider to let them know the roof had been replaced. Note: this is something I actually did in February when our roof was first replaced!!

I also followed up to make sure it had been noted in our file.

Again, this won't save me anything NOW, but it could save me hundreds of hours of my life in the future.

Bonus: One thing we purchased that will save us money.

I broke down and bought a set of room darkening curtains from Walmart. They are actually very pretty and were only around $10. In the long run, they will save us money by blocking some of the morning sun that heats up the front of our house in the early hours of the day.

I want to get another set of curtains for the windows in the back of our house for the afternoon.

I think next summer (or even the coming weeks) this will actually help us lower our electric bill as it keeps our house cooler.

What about you? How have you saved money this month?

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