Not a total spendthrift

The point of this post is to make myself feel better about my spending habits after Monday's post about my grocery-shopping woes. I in no way claim that any of these list items are original or earth-shattering, but they do ease my conscience.

In order to save money/not waste it/earn extra, we:

• Usually order water when eating out.
• Never pay retail for books without a gift card. (I find tons of good books at yard sales, thrift stores and used bookstores, and am a public library VIP.)
• Get all of my magazines from friends or recycling bins.
• Turn off the water while brushing my teeth and washing my face.
• Turn all the lights out and turn the air way up or down (depending on the weather) when we aren't home.
• Buy running shoes on eBay or on clearance at the outlets.
• Buy store-brand groceries unless we have a definite preference for the name brand (e.g. Lipton onion soup mix, Kraft cheddar cheese, Dixie Crystals sugar).
• Refill water bottles with tap water multiple times. (I've been using my current bottle since Amanda and I visited Lib in Charlotte in ... September? Has it really been that long?)
• Won't buy a new-to-me car for me this year even though I could probably justify it. (Instead, I drive Matt's new-to-him car when I have clients in town.)
• Sell clothes and household items at consignment stores (after offering them to friends).
• Earn extra money editing and writing.
• Have high insurance deductibles (and thus lower premiums).
• Don't have long distance, caller ID, call waiting, voicemail, three-way calling or any other features on our home phone.
• Use our credit card for almost everything so we earn cash back. (And pay it off every month.)
• Make coffee at home rather than buying it at a coffee shop (with one very worthwhile exception: my weekly coffee dates with Mom).
• Keep only enough money in our checking account to keep checks from bouncing, and let the rest of our cash earn interest in a high-yield credit-union money-market account.
• Decided against a lot of upgrades in our new house (brick-and-vinyl rather than all-brick exterior, no irrigation system, no smooth ceilings, faux-marble rather than granite counters in the guest bathrooms, white cabinets rather than wood cabinets in all bathrooms, concrete rather than brick or tile porch floor, middle-of-the-line appliances and fixtures, etc.). It would have been easy to spend an extra $50,000 or more.
• Pay all of our bills through automatic draft (saving lots of stamps and guaranteeing we never pay late fees).
• Don't buy things we don't need just because we have a coupon.
• Try to buy big-ticket items only when we have a coupon.
• Never pay loan-origination fees for personal mortgages (a nice perk of being in real estate).
• Put at least 20 percent down on our personal mortgages so we don't have to pay PMI.
• Pay extra toward the principal on our personal mortgages every month.
• Return movies and library books on time and avoid late fees.
• Stretch out the time between haircuts (every 10 or 12 weeks rather than the standard six).
• Never splurge on $70 massages, $35 pedicures or even $5 lattes (though gift certificates for all of these are very welcome!).
• Get a discount on our electric bill because our house is energy-efficient.
• Don't smoke.
• Always ask, when renting a car, staying in a hotel, etc., "Is that the best price you can give us?" and "Do you have a Triple-A discount?"
• And then we ask whether we can get an additional discount if we pay cash.
• Belong to the local Freecycle group (best find so far: two Broyhill end tables that I refinished).
• Unplug rarely used appliances and lamps.
• Replaced our incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones.
• Collect rainwater and use it to water our plants.
• Filled two water bottles and put one in each toilet tank.
• Don't play the lottery.
• Use regular unleaded gas in both of our cars (Matt's owner's manual recommends using premium, but we can't tell a difference).
• Have "preferred customer" cards from everywhere -- Staples to Hallmark to Borders to CVS and, of course, all the grocery stores.
• Use grocery bags as trash bags in the bathrooms.
• Live in a town without a mall or any of my favorite stores.

What are your best money-saving tips?

P.S. A special thanks to the anonymous commenter who told me about The Coupon Mom as a (free) alternative to The Grocery Game. I'll be checking that out. Thanks also to Lib for posting her grocery-shopping strategy as a model!