6 Quick and Simple Ways to Save Money
Doesn’t it feel like your money just slips right through your fingertips sometimes? I can’t tell you how many times throughout the first quarter of the year (tax time) I hear people say, “we made $XXX last year and we have no idea where it went!” Heck, I say that to my husband ALL THE TIME. So, today I’m talking about six things you can do right now to help save some of your hard-earned money.
- Buy a coffee maker. I know, I know. I just told you I’d help save you money and here I am telling you to buy something. Your morning coffee run is a bigger drain on your finances than most people realize. Let me break it down. If you buy a $4.50 coffee, 5 days a week for a year you are spending over a thousand dollars. A THOUSAND DOLLARS! Shocked? Yeah, I was too. If you aren’t a plain coffee drinker, buy an espresso maker, a latte maker, or if you have young children, just set up an IV drip. Whatever it takes to get you to make your coffee at home. Save the expensive coffee drinks for special occasions.
- Unsubscribe to retailer emails. Or, if you’re like my husband, you can just allow hundreds and hundreds of them to pile up in your inbox and never look at them. Those emails are how they get you. Retailers are constantly sending emails toting their latest sale or their limited time free shipping. It is an easy way to fall into buying things you don’t need. Watching for sales and shopping sales is certainly not a bad thing, but don’t allow retailers to tell you what you need. Oh, bedding is on sale at Pottery Barn? Awesome! Do you need new bedding? Probably not.
- Never save your credit card information to online retailers. This kind of piggy-backs off number 2. Maybe it’s just me, but online shopping is dangerous, especially when I’m up in the middle of the night with a baby. Most retailers offer you the option to save your credit card information “for faster checkout next time.” It’s a great idea on their part. It makes impulsive purchases so easy. If you don’t even have to move a muscle to purchase everything in your online cart, you’re that much more likely to do so, without a second thought. It sounds silly, but just the act of having to get up, find your wallet, input your card information and check out gives you a few extra minutes to think through your purchase before you make it. BONUS, sleeping on all online purchases will even further cut down on impulsive spending.
- Pack a sack lunch. I hate this one. Honestly, everything else I can handle but I hate packing a lunch in the morning. I am not a breakfast eater and food just never sounds good to me in the morning, definitely not lunch foods! I often times find myself thinking ‘I’ll just go grab something at lunch time.’ No no no! It is so expensive, not to mention probably unhealthy. Find a way to make this work for you. I’ve found that I have to plan my lunch the night before, have it ready to go and force myself to grab it the next morning, even if it doesn’t sound good at 7:00am.
- Check your subscriptions. It’s not hard to rack up a list of subscription services that you seldom use. Netflix: $12/month, Amazon Prime: $119/year, Disney+: $7/month, Ispy: $10/month, Local Newspaper: $300/year, Magazine subscriptions: $20-40/month, Company Loyalty Programs: $5-30/month. The list goes on and on. Some of them are great. I’m an avid Amazon Prime user. It makes my life easier and is definitely worth the $119. On the flip side, I had a subscription to an online paper goods company that I never used. I don’t even remember signing up for it but I paid $7 a month for almost 2 years before unsubscribing. That was $168 I could have spent on something useful. Don’t let useless subscriptions nickel and dime you to death. $7 a month might not feel like a lot, but it adds up. Keep what you use and cancel what you can.
- Use cash. This is something I have talked about before in a little different capacity, budgeting specifically. Using cash is great for new budgeters, but it’s also great for people who are trying to save money. There is a psychological aspect to spending cash that does not exist with credit and debit cards. It’s more difficult to separate ourselves from our cash. Credit and debit cards keep our physical money out of sight and largely out of mind. It is a lot easier to spend money when we don’t have to watch it leave our hands.
