15 Money Saving Tips
Practical money saving tips everyone can benefit from
Learn how to save on just about everything you buy daily, as well as tips on what to do with the money you do save.
1. Put an End to Unused Subscriptions
Unused subscriptions are easy to overlook, especially if they are automatically paid. Do an audit every few months to see if you are paying for subscriptions you don’t need. There are apps, like Rocket Money, that make canceling subscriptions easy. You may find you’ve been paying $24.99 per month the last 7 months on a service or app that you haven’t used.
3. Set a Small Saving Goal for Starters
The philosophy here is to get you into the habit of saving money. This method keeps you excited and encourages you to save more once you reach your first goal. If you start out by going 0 to 60 it can be more discouraging in the short term and cause you to give up. Start small and work it up incrementally. Soon you will reach your bigger savings goal.
4. Save Easy Money on Top of Your Regular Savings
Easy money is money that came from somewhere other than your regular income. This could be a tax return, work bonus, insurance payout, or even a gift. By making this part of your saving method, you can see your savings grow exponentially when such occurrences happen. You don’t have to save 100% of easy money. You can choose a certain percent to use for other purposes too. The main thing is to make a habit of saving a percentage of easy money every time it’s received.
5. Put an End to Impulse Buying
Everyone has a different amount of self-control when it comes to this habit. If you have a bad habit of impulse buying, set a rule of 24 to 48 hours on such purchases. During that time decide if you would rather have the item, or the money that item costs. There is no perfect method, but if anything, at least use this rule before impulse buying higher cost items.
6. Don’t Use ATMs That Charge You Fees
This can add up, especially if you are a regular ATM user. In some places the ATM and your bank charge you a fee for using an out of network ATM. This can be $5, $6, or sometimes even more. Make it a habit to get cash when you are near one of your bank’s ATMs. This alone could save you $50 or more a month.
7. Observe a No Spend Day Every Week
A weekly No Spend Day is a good money saving habit in a couple of ways. First, it gives you a net positive for that day – your daily earnings will not decrease one penny on a no spend day. Second, it helps you realize you can often find something to make for dinner using ingredients you already have in your fridge. This can motivate you to become more conscious about your spending overall.
8. Give Generic a Try
It’s easy to fall in love with a brand or at least into a habit of buying a certain brand over and over. But try giving Great Value butter a try over the brand name butter you’ve been buying habitually for as long as you can remember. This same money saving tip can apply to any food item, prescriptions, over the counter medications and so on. You may be very surprised how much you can save by purchasing lower cost daily items.
9. Use Less Water by Upgrading to Lower Usage Appliances
Compared to old appliances, toilets, and faucets, the newer generations use way less water. This can lead to a significant savings every month, especially for larger households. To give you an example, new toilets can only use 1.6 gallons per flush per federal law vs 3.5 gallons per flush for older toilets. That adds up to a lot of savings on your water bill each month.
10. Free Family Entertainment
Sometimes a day at the park with a nice picnic can not only be refreshing for the soul, but it is also easy on the pocketbook. If you were to compare a matinee with a family of five and a movie theatre snack for each vs the cost of a family picnic at the park, you may be talking a $70 difference or more.
11. Make Your Lunch Sometimes
This money saving tip can add up to a lot of savings every week. Especially if you eat out for lunch on a regular basis. Rising food prices makes it even more expensive to eat out. There are many packed lunch options someone can make for a couple of dollars or less. Compare that to eating out at a cost of $10 or more per person. That’s an $8 savings, or more, for every day you take your lunch.
12. Buy in Bulk
The larger your family, the more this tip will save you. There are many nonperishable items a family of any size can buy in bulk. But if you have a large family (several kids at home) there are even more food items that might make sense to buy in bulk. If you can justify buying enough in bulk, joining Costco or Sam’s Club would be a good option.
13. Use a Credit Card with a Good Cash Back Incentive
Believe it or not there is a responsible way to use a credit card. That way is using it for everyday expenses and paying it off in full each time. Using it in this way will cost you zero in interest charges, but typically allows you to earn 1% to 5% cashback on purchases such as gas, groceries, dining out, traveling, and sometimes monthly bills such as internet and phone.
14. Use Coupons
Use coupons for anything you would buy anyway. If you look hard enough sometimes you can find a manufacturers coupon that you can use on top of the store coupon. Using a few coupons every time you shop, or get something from a drive thru, can add up to a good amount each month.
15. Be Creative by Making Pizza Instead of Ordering it
Just like everything else, the cost of ordering pizza from a restaurant is going up too. But you can make pizza at home for a fraction of the price. Not only will this money saving tip save you some hard-earned cash, it’s also a blast for the kids.