Eight Sure-Fire Ways to Sock Away $100

Let the economic pundits argue whether or not we're in a recession.

Either way, consumers are cutting back on spending.

Along with this comes a desire to save money as well. But how? If you have a few hours to spare you can find ways to put $100 or more back into your pocket.

The money may not show up instantly, but the time and effort to create the savings is minimal. By year's end you will have saved a nice chunk of change. In some cases, your savings will keep piling up well after that.

Here are eight actions to add $100 or more to your savings:

1. Wash With Cold Water

Many people don't realize that the major cost of running a washing machine is the electricity it takes to heat the water. This accounts for 85% to 90% of the energy used.

Set your washing machine to run a cold wash/cold rinse cycle instead of a hot wash/cold rinse. This should have little impact on how clean your clothes get since washing machines and detergents have advanced enough that only the dirtiest and greasiest clothes now need a hot wash to get clean.

While a hot wash/cold rinse setting will cost about $100 to $150 a year if you do a load of laundry a day, the same number of loads with a cold wash/cold rinse setting will cost about $10 a year.

That's $100 in savings, and can be much more if you have children and do frequent wash loads. Best of all, it takes a split second to turn the knob on your washing machine to receive this savings.

2. Drink More Water

Many people have grown accustomed to having some type of flavor in their drinks -- whether that be soda, fruit juice, an energy drink or something similar.

While only drinking water (of the nonbottled variety) would be the ideal way to save the most money, there is about as much chance of that happening as you never eating another snack.

But even reducing the amount you drink can save quite a bit of money over time.

Instead of saying that you can no longer have the drinks you like, a simple way to reduce the amount you consume is to make a point of drinking three glasses of water a day.

The water will reduce your cravings for your usual drink, although not eliminate it, since you'll find you're just less thirsty during the day.

If you can cut out three drinks a week that usually cost $1, you have saved over $150 a year for the minute or so it takes to fill three glasses of water each day.

3. Compare Prices

The Internet has leveled the playing field when shopping for such things as auto insurance and homeowners insurance.

All it takes is a few minutes of inputting information to see if you can get a better deal. Since it's such a competitive field, you can often save hundreds a year -- especially if you haven't checked prices recently.

You can take this a step further depending on how dedicated you want to be by price comparing all your major purchases through sites such as PriceGrabber or Shopping.com and save hundreds more.

4. Use Coupons

Many people scoff at coupons because of the time it takes to gather and organize them.

Then there's the obvious nerdiness factor.

Truth is, even if you aren't the coupon-clipping type, you can still save quite a bit with them.