While the economic pundits argue about whether or not we’re in a recession, consumers continue to cut back on spending.  Along with this comes a desire to save money as well. But how?

According to TheStreet.com, 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.

TheStreet.com offers eight ways 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. 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.

2. Drink More Water

While only drinking water (of the non-bottled 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, TheStreet.com says.

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.

4. Use Coupons

Many people laugh at the idea of using coupons because of the time it takes to gather and organize them.  Even if you aren’t the coupon-clipping type, you can still save quite a bit with them. Just take five minutes to look at the ones that come with the Sunday paper, in the daily mail and any others that you happen across. Cut out only those for the products that you already use and will purchase again and don’t bother with any others. It only takes $2 each week in coupon savings to save more than $100 a year.

5. Start Haggling

While most people don’t take the time to do it, virtually all the services you currently pay for are negotiable, including your cable TV, gym membership, phone bill and Internet service. While asking for a better deal may not work with all of these all of the time, you will get a discount a lot more times than you probably imagine.  All it takes is a 10-minute call to each service. If you can negotiate a $10 a month discount on each, that comes to $480 a year in savings for a few phone calls. It will probably end up being a lot more.

6. Get a Lower Credit Card Rate

While you’re on the phone, be sure to make a call to your credit card company if you currently carry a balance on your credit card.  Many people don’t realize that all it takes to lower your credit card interest rate in many cases is a simple phone call asking. TheStreet.com cites a 2002 study that found that over half the people who had good credit and called their credit card companies to get better interest rates were able to do so with the average person reducing the rates by one-third.

7. Sell Stuff

Scavenge your closets, basement, garage and other nooks and crannies and surely you’ll produce boxes of stuff that you own, but no longer have any use for.  Instead of keeping them in storage, sell it! You can do it online through sites like eBay or Craigslist, or have a garage sale and get rid of it all at once.  The basic guideline: If you haven’t used something for the last year, you will probably never use it again.  Selling all this will keep your house less cluttered and will also bring in well over $100 in most cases, TheStreet says.

8. Refinance Your Home

With interest rates at the lowest level in years, it’s time to see if refinancing your home loan (or any outstanding loan you have) is worthwhile.  Knocking off a point can save thousands of dollars over the lifetime of the loan.  While refinancing is a bit more complicated than the other saving methods and will take a bit more time to complete all the necessary work, the amount saved per year is huge and thus well worth the effort.

TheStreet says that in order to make the savings last, you need to actually set the money aside that you save after completing the above tasks.  If you merely congratulate yourself for saving money, but don’t separate the money into another account, it will likely be spent on other things and the savings will never materialize, they say.