First, make use of the CDs that you already have. Rip CDs to mp3 and upload music to your portable payer instead of purchasing the same music directly in MP3 format.

Search free music sites. Often they are not so good-looking as iTunes but it's worth looking at them just to save few dollars. The bad thing about them is that tracks may be not in popular mp3 format, but a good audio converter will do the job.

If you burn a CD with your own music you can even earn money with it. There are certain services that accept physical CDs, make digital copies of them and sell them via their sites. Artists get up to 70% of each purchase. An example of such a service is FretTunes.

Save on your online purchases. Almost every music store offers music in mp3 (about $10), flac (about $12) and a physical CD (over $20). Many people buy mp3 and a CD in a bundle. That's a waste of money. You can buy a flac copy and later convert it to mp3 or any other format using . Keeping in mind that flac is an exact copy of the CD so you can burn an excellent physical disc by free standard windows tools.

Alternatively there are site like UltraMusicDownloads.com that offer you unlimited number of downloads without the pain of paying for each track. You pay once for the membership (about $20 per year) and get unlimited access to the database or music, movies and games. If you like to get new music every month that will save you a lot of money.

Many music sites offer a radio service. So you listen to full-length songs from their catalogs absolutely free.