Money Saving Tips
Happy Monday friends! Over the the weekend I was talking with a friends and we were talking about how expensive things currently are. I am convinced that no matter where you live, how much money you make or what your lifestyle is, you are feeling the squeeze in the bank account for inflation. It is hard to not think about it often especially as inflation continues to rise but wages don’t. It is a huge conversation that I feel like is being had often and one you can’t avoid if you turn on the TV, social media or any outlet covering current news.
As my friends and I were talking I was sharing with her a few money saving tips that I love and I thought, let me share it here too! For those who don’t know my story, I grew up very poor. I truly never knew as a child when our lights would be turned off or if we would have food in the house (so thankful for Grandparents who always got my mom our of a bind so that we kids had what we needed) and so I am always thinking about ways to cut costs and save money even as a stable adult.
It never hurts to save where you can so today, I am going to share my five favorite money saving tips!
Let’s dive in….
Eat the food in your house! Chances are your biggest expense outside of your rent/mortgage and car is food. Food is one of our #1 expenses and whew have groceries gotten expensive. The best way to save money on groceries is to buy only what you need and use it! How often do we buy another bag of chips when there is an open one going stale in the pantry? Or we grab another coffee creamer flavor even though we have 2 in our fridge. Then things go bad you throw them out, essentially just throwing money out. So plan meals around the food you’ve already purchased. Eat things before they go bad…this will help cut your grocery bill down so much.
Cancel subscriptions! We all at some point have subscriptions we don’t use or don’t use enough to justify the cost. Every quarter I go through all the subscriptions we have a decide whether to keep or cancel. If you aren’t using them this is a great time to get rid of them because all of those $10, $20 even $5 subscriptions add up over time. An example for us here was Disney +…we just didn’t use it enough and even though it was $7 a month, its a wasted few bucks when we didn’t watch it.
Ditch the Starbucks! I know, I know…I love a good Starbucks too! Bur ya’ll an $8 coffee is insanity so for us to save money, I put limits on my trips. I try to limit to 1x a week and instead make coffee at home. I order stuff for iced coffee and hot coffee so I have options and then when I do treat myself I really enjoy it too! If you are stopping at Starbucks, or replace that with eating lunch out every day…whatever that looks like for you try to cut it. Chances are you aren’t realizing how much money you are spending in daily pick me ups.
DIY! We all have our thing right? I love getting my nails done. My husband likes to go to the barber. We like to outsource things like grocery delivery or cleaning. But, when we are trying to save money we cut back on those things and it do it ourselves. Every summer I actually take a break from getting my nails done to let them breathe and do them myself especially since we are in the water a lot and it saves money! Take a look at where your money is going and see if you can do anything yourself.
Make a list of free things you like to do! A lot of our mindless spending is when we get bored. Whether that means shopping, eating out, going to do something etc we know that sometimes we spend money we don’t want to purely out of boredom. To combat this, I have a list of things we can do that don’t cost us anything…going to the beach, going on a walk, playing a game together at home, etc. This helps get us moving and doing something we enjoy without dipping in the bank account if we are trying to save.
I truly think the hardest part of budgeting and saving money is the fear of missing out. And in full transparency, we feel that too. We don’t want to compromise the life we have because groceries are more expensive but the reality is we have to! These small but intentional changes really add up and help us buckle down when we need to without feeling like we are being so restrictive we don’t enjoy life!
What are your favorite money saving tips? Leave them below, I would love to read them!
