First things first: since I’m sharing some of my fav ways to save money, there are affiliate links in this post. If you buy or join I’ll earn some coffee money ☕ or points towards gift cards 🎁.
Who Needs More Money?
A recent study by ING found that 27% of Americans have no savings at all, 62% think they will have to work during their retirement years to make ends meet, and only 30% believe they will be able to enjoy the same standard of living during retirement as they do now.
These numbers are scary and it’s depressing to think we’re working… just to keep working. Or, not looking forward to doing the fun things in retirement we’ve always dreamed of.
If you want to build a savings, but haven’t been able to, I’ve got some tips below to help you get started. But before you can make a plan, you need to have a goal. Let’s look at how to set that goal so that it’s your motivation to stick with your savings plan for the long haul.
Find Your Why
The biggest obstacle to actually saving money is finding your Big Why. Why do you want to save money?
Do you want to have enough tucked away to cover unexpected expenses, like car repairs, home damages, roof repairs, or out of pocket dental or medical costs?
What about money to cover expenses if you lost your job? Your Why may be having several months of expenses available to float your family while job hunting.
Do you want (or need) a new car? Is your goal to buy a car outright with cash or have a decent down payment?
If you don’t own a home, do you want to? You’ll need a sizable down payment for that. If you own a home, maybe you’re ready to make some improvements and would like to complete them without taking a home equity loan.
How much debt do you have? How would your life look without it? Maybe paying off credit cards and other high-interest loans is your Why.
Or, maybe you’re ready to start your own business and want to have a financial buffer while you’re getting off the ground. It might not be a new business, but you want to expand your current business.
How about planning for retirement? Don’t focus so much on your current situation that you neglect planning for your golden years.
Whatever your Why, there are several super easy changes you can make today to begin building your savings to the amount you want.
Set Your Goal
Based on your Why that we determined above, let’s look at how to set your goal. You can’t work towards something that isn’t defined.
Take Inventory
If you want to save for unexpected expenses, make it easier by expecting and mitigating them! Take an honest inventory of your home (how old is that freezer?), its age, scheduled maintenance, etc. Do you have a septic tank or a well? How old is your roof? Determine what you think you’ll need to replace in the next several years and plan now.
💰 BONUS: Do some research and find out what preventative maintenance you can do now to save yourself from big repairs later.
You can take inventory of medical and dental expenses as well. What’s your out of pocket deductible on your insurance? You should have that tucked away at least. Don’t forget, spending a couple of hundred a year on dental cleanings and x-rays can save thousands in root canals later.
How much money would you need to get by if you lost your job or wanted to leave it, say to start your own business? Calculate your monthly expenses and determine a number that you are comfortable with. Is it three months, six months, a year? Find the safety net that works for you and make that your goal.
If you want a dream vacation, start planning it! It might be a cruise, a trip to the Caribbean, overseas, a road trip, whatever it is you want to do–start planning it out. Flesh out the details and research costs. Once you have a total, you have a goal.
If you want to make home improvements, start researching options and determine how much you want to do. Full kitchen remodel or just new appliances? If you want new floors, where and what type?
Like kitchens, bathroom remodels can be simple or a complete overhaul. Are you going to DIY or contract it out? Once you’ve made some decisions, you can develop an action plan and research the costs to complete it.
Set Your Timeline
Now that you have your number, how soon do you want to reach it? How soon do you think you’ll need to make home repairs, or when do you want that new kitchen? If you’re paying off debt, how soon do you want it gone?
Take your big number and break it down. Determine how much you need, when you need it, and create smaller chunks that will get you there. For example:
Family Vacation = $5,000 Scheduled in 1 year = $5,000/52 weeks = $96.15/week
💰 Can you save $100 a week? Keep reading, you’ll find some great tips below.👇
Some timelines may be pre-determined. Maybe you want that dream vacation to coincide with another life event, like a wedding or a graduation. You may want to align your new car strategy with the annual dealership sales.
Stretch yourself, but be realistic. You can tweak this date as you review your current budget and create the savings methods that work for you.
Start Saving
There are so many ways to save money without making huge sacrifices, let’s take a look at a few you can start with today!
Auto Transfers
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an auto-transfer from my checking account to my savings account. This super-easy savings method is on auto-pilot, you set it and let it run. This isn’t saying you never review or change it, but you can start off little and grow.
For example, would you really notice $10 or $20 a week if went “missing”? Move it automatically into savings and see what happens. Play around with the numbers and try to move as much as possible into savings every month. Or, work with your paychecks and set up an auto transfer on the days you get paid. You may be surprised at how easy it is to get started building that savings!
💰 BONUS: When you get a raise or bonus, don’t spend it–save it. Increase your monthly transfers to include your raise or bonus. Want some extra cash? Then move half of your raise into savings. Think of it this way: it’s money you didn’t have before so you won’t miss it.
💰 Don’t forget your employer matched accounts. You should put at least the amount needed into your workplace retirement accounts for your employer to match it. Don’t miss out on that free money!
Brown Bag Lunch and Eat Dinner Out Less
How much money will you save if you don’t eat lunch out every day Monday through Friday? Can you pack your lunch for work? Not only money but what about calories? Do you eat fast food a lot because it’s quick, easy, and cheap?
What if you had a nutritious, free (well, paid for when you went grocery shopping) lunch available in your office every day? Think about the changes you could make. Enjoy a casual, relaxed lunch with colleagues in the breakroom or take your lunch outside with a book. If you have a lunch ready, you can actually take a break from your work without heading into traffic.
And you can pack healthier food than you can grab quickly. Calculate the money you spend in a typical month on eating lunches out at work and add it to your Auto Transfer.
So, we’ve addressed eating out less at work, but what about at home? How often do you go out to eat or order in? Really take a look at the money you spend on restaurants and consider the value you’re getting.
How much can you save by cooking and eating at home? What can you do to make eating in more fun? Research new recipes, find things the whole family can help out with. Light some candles, turn off the TV and turn on some music.
Make meal times at home special and, you guessed it, you just increased your Auto Transfer again.
📝Side Note: This can be super hard for families with lots of activities and obligations. Consider crock pots, batch cooking, and family tailgate meals. There are ways to cut back on eating out when it seems you’re always “out”! Be creative and a side effect may be more quality family time.
Plan Your Grocery Trip 🛒
You know you need a grocery list and you know you shouldn’t go grocery shopping hungry. But what else can you do to minimize that bill?
Plan your meals for the week (or whatever your grocery shopping schedule is) and make your list from that. Think about planning in leftovers if you can, and plan around the weekly grocery store sales.
Determine your weak spots when shopping and try to mitigate them. Is it your kids wanting things that get added to the cart? Or if you have extra time to browse, do you find things that you just have to have even if they are not on the list?
Whatever the trigger is that moves you from your list, try to find ways to avoid it. Try to schedule trips when you don’t have to take the kids or when you don’t have a lot of extra time.
Review your grocery expenses and see how much you’re saving by making small tweaks. This can be your motivation to not only keep it up but rev it up! And don’t forget, that was money you were used to not having anyway, so go ahead and move it to savings.
💰 Bonus: Does your grocery have a rewards card? Plan your trip to take advantage of the additional savings or points you can get with those programs as well.
Review Your Plans
Review your Internet, phone, and cable plans. Can you cut back on services? Call and see how much you can lower your bill.
Have your rates increased? Call them, most often you can negotiate a lower rate. Is there a new promo out for new customers? Call and see what you can get instead.
What about your car insurance? When is the last time you reviewed your policy? Take a look and see what your policy covers. Then do some comparison shopping and see if you can find a lower rate. Take into account loyalty discount programs, if you have them, but also overall savings.
💰 BONUS: Check your cell phone carrier, they may have value programs you can take advantage of. For example, my cell phone plan includes an annual Amazon Prime Membership. You may have to stop by a store to get it set up, but if you use the benefit the trip will be worth it.
Use Credit Cards to Make Money
Depending on your spending habits, you can make money from different credit cards. Many cards have cash back, points, travel rewards, etc. available to members. Use those to your advantage.
For example, my husband and I use the American Express Blue Cash credit card everywhere, like a debit card and pay it off in full every month. We make at least $1,000 each year in Reward Dollars. You can use those as points for gift cards or as a statement credit. And the Blue Cash card doesn’t have an annual fee.
Personally, I’ve used that money for things like vacations, gifts, insurance payments, house expenses, holidays, and special date nights. But I couldn’t count that as free money if I didn’t pay the card balance off every month! ✅Remember: if you’re maintaining a balance and paying high rates of interest, you’re losing… not making money.
Don’t forget to check out store cards as well. When you shop at Lowes with their card, you get a percentage off the purchase price or the option for 6 months repayment with no interest (for purchases over a certain amount). Best Buy has special no-interest specials on a regular basis as well.
When paying off credit card debt, you can move balances from high-interest rate cards to new ones with low or no introductory rates. However, opening and closing cards can affect your credit score. Do your research first to make sure your savings are worth it! Talk to your bank or find an online tool like Credit Sesame that can help you understand your options.
Shop Sales and Wait
Hit the sales racks, off-price stores, and after holiday sales. Check out secondhand stores, online communities, and apps. Give yourself a waiting period before making new purchases. Do you really need that new “whatever it is that I have to have right now”? Take a break, take a breath, come back in a couple of weeks or a month and see how you feel. You probably didn’t really have to have it and now you’ve got more money to move to savings.
Shopping Apps
There are a ton of shopping apps you can use to find better deals, coupons, and get points or cash back. I’m only going to touch on a few that I use regularly and can recommend from personal experience.
ibotta
Ibotta is one of the easiest ways I’ve found to make a little extra money. To use Ibotta, you download an app, find offers on items, both in-store and online, and Ibotta will add the advertised money to your account when you purchase the item(s).
You can scan your receipt or link your store loyalty card to redeem. Depending on the store, you may only have one of those options or both.
Ibotta works with over 300 retailers, making it super easy to earn money on things you buy and do every day. You can withdraw the money as cash with PayPal or Venmo, or redeem it for gift cards.
Rakuten (previously Ebates)
Rakuten pays cash via check or PayPal, your choice! Set up an account, add the Chrome extension, and when you shop on an eligible site Rakuten will ask you to activate the eligible percent cash back they offer.
You can also link a card to your account and get cash back when you shop in store. There are a lot of options, so there are probably a few you shop at that you can be getting cash back.
Honey Gold
Use Honey Gold when you’re shopping online and you not only earn points towards gift cards, but the app will automatically look for the best deals and coupons to apply to your purchase.
Your Honey Gold home page will also list current shopping deals for you based on your shopping preferences, and they offer point specials on a regular basis. For example, if you purchase a gift card and shop at a certain store in X hours, you get an extra 1,000 points, or whatever that day’s deal is.
Swagbucks
There are a ton of ways to earn money with Swagbucks. Searching the web, taking surveys, playing games, watching videos, uploading receipts, shopping online, shopping in store, and finding swag codes online. Like Rakuten and Honey Gold, the browser app will alert you when there are online shopping Swagbucks to be earned.
You can redeem Swagbucks points for gift cards or get cash deposited into your PayPal account.
Celebrate Your Wins and Keep Going!
Making small changes to your spending habits can be much easier than overhauling your entire budget. Review your progress in a few months and pat yourself on the back!
Now take a look at your Big Why and your timeline and make any tweaks you need so that you’re staying on track. Can you move that timeline up? Are there additional changes you can make to meet it? Or, are you maxed out and need to extend it a bit? Find your realistic goal and keep moving towards it.
Some months will be easier than others, so don’t give up! If you don’t meet your goal one month, give yourself some slack and try again. Keep your Why in focus and experiment with your budget to get there. This is your journey, your goal, your budget–find what works for you and keep going.
💰 Have any savings tips, tricks, or apps you use to save money? Share in the comments below! 👇
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