Everyone wants to be able to save money, but some people don’t know where to start. This article will provide you with money saving tips that will help you start your journey of saving money by making small changes in your daily life to help you live on less.
1. Small Bottles of Essentials
Buying everyday essentials, like toilet paper and paper towels, oral hygiene products, soap, and shampoo/conditioner, in bulk can save you money in the long run for two different reasons. First and foremost, buying in bulk is more cost-efficient, as you are obtaining a better deal on each individual unit versus buying a single unit at a time. Secondly, buying in bulk will save you from making multiple trips to the store when you run out of the product, reducing your gas usage.
With that being said, you should only buy things in bulk that you know you will use and won’t perish, like toilet paper and shampoo/conditioner. You can also save more money by using reusable containers and bottles that can be refilled, further eliminating the need to buy more containers and reducing your family’s waste.
2. Start Making your own Coffee
On average, coffee bought from a coffee shop can cost anywhere from $1 to $5 per cup. If you buy a single cup of $4 coffee every day, that comes out to about $28 every week, $112 every month, and approx. $1,456 every year. That is a lot of money to be spending on a single cup of coffee every single day.
Buying coffee from the store and brewing it at home, on the other hand, costs about 16 to 18 cents a cup. At 18 cents a cup, you would be spending approx. $1.26 a week, $5.04 a month, and $65.70 every year.
3. Going Out to Bars
While going bar hopping with friends and colleagues is a great way to relax after a stressful work week, they are also extremely expensive. On average, a person usually spends about $50 for six drinks at a bar in a single night. If you are going out once almost every weekend, that $50 really adds up – you will be spending $150 every month if you go to the bars 3 out of 4 Saturdays in a month.
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4. Impulsive Buys
Simply put, impulse buying is an unplanned decision to buy a service or product immediately before its purchase. Deciding to buy a candy bar when you get up to the checkout counter is an innocent example of an impulse purchase. Recent studies have shown that Americans spend about $5,400 a year on impulse purchases and over $324,000 in their lifetime. Cut down on impulse purchases by sticking to a budget and only bringing the amount of cash you need to the store.
5. Cut Entertainment Spending
When money is tight, you cannot afford an expensive trip to the movie theatre or restaurant for a date night. You can also be spending a lot of your money on entertainment spending, which includes show and music streaming services as well as concerts, sports, and various others.
You can still build memories and have fun without spending a large amount of money with no cost weekends. Instead of going to the movies or to a theme park, look for no cost alternatives like going for a hike or, going for a picnic in the park where you can also spend time with your loved ones. You can also keep your eye out for free admission events, like cultural festivals and public live music shows.
6. Stop Buying Lyfts, Ubers, or other Driving Services
Many people throughout the United States don’t have a car to get around a city and will opt in for using expensive transportation services like Lyft and Uber. While these services are extremely convenient, they can cost upwards of $1-2 dollars per mile, without taking tips into account.
To save money, walk to the places you need to go that are within walking distance or take public transportation to places you are not able to walk to.
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7. Minor Home and Car Repairs
Extremely minor home repairs, like toilet clogs, or simple oil changes can be accomplished without calling professionals. There are multiple informational videos found on YouTube that can help you learn how to fix minor home and car repairs yourself, instead of shelling out for a repairman or mechanic.
8. Subscription Boxes
Unaccounted spending, like automatic subscriptions to product boxes or magazines, can make a huge dent in your finances throughout the year. On average, Americans will spend about $273 per month on auto-renewal subscription services that they forget they have. For many people, the only reason why they haven’t cancelled their auto-renewal services is because they take time to do and are often forgotten about until the next payment comes out of their account.
9. Buying Lunch at Work
One extremely easy way to save money is to start bringing your own lunch to work, instead of getting fast food, delivery, or a snack from a vending machine. Bringing your lunch can be as simple as getting leftovers from the day prior from the fridge or packing a sandwich and chips. Usually, bringing your own lunch from home is often more health conscious than getting fast food or take out.
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10. Brand Name Products
When you are at the store, you have the option to choose between the name brand product and the store’s own generic version of the name brand product. Almost every object in the store, from food to household cleaners, to medications, come in both name brand and generic options. The name brand will always be more expensive than the generic, even though they often have the exact same ingredients and performance.
Some people swear that name brand objects are superior in performance and quality, but studies have shown time and time again that there is often little to no difference between the name brand and generic options. So, when money is tight, go for the cheaper generic brands instead of a name brand product.
Almost everyone wants to be able to save money in all aspects of their life, regardless of whether they are living paycheck to paycheck or are financially stable. Being able to live on less is a great feeling and can take a lot of financial stress off of both yourself and your family. Living on less money is easy and can be attained by making small, but deliberate, changes in your daily life to save you a lot over a year. The money saving tips from this article should help you get a good start on saving money.
