When your wallet stretched thin, you shouldn’t cut back on necessity but you should look for a ways to make some changes in your life that leads you to save extra much needed money. You shouldn’t cut your mortgage, car payments and insurance; but there are plenty of other ways that can save you money. Below, we have listed 12 simple steps you can take to save extra money. Keep in mind that all small changes leads to make bigger saving.
1. Don’t use Debit Card, Use Credit Card
It is wise to use a Credit Card whenever possible while out shopping. Major banks in the US offer Credit Cards to their customers with no Annual Fee and they also offer either cashback or rewards to use their Credit Card. But make sure to pay your Credit Card Bills on time, so it doesn’t incur any interest.
2. Change your Phone Plan
Phone plans are expensive, there used to be a time when phone carriers used to charge for talking; now they sell you data. T-Mobile sells 20GB plans for $85 USD. Most users don’t end up using 20GB per month. With current Android and iOS, users can track their data usage, you should find out what is a minimum data usage and find a plan that meets your needs.
3. Cancel Automated Purchase
Automated Purchase makes a big dent on your monthly saving. You could actually save money by purchasing when you need. If there are some automated services you didn’t use last month, that is probably good for chopping. Big box stores or Online Retailers like Amazon do offer a choice to cancel a subscription without any penalty.
4. Do Meal Prep Every Week
Eating out once a while is okay, but eating out every day is not okay. Do a meal prep with a different choice of your food. You can do bulk groceries, plan ahead and meal prep the week over the weekend. It is a good habit to follow that helps you save money from eating out.
5. Ride a bike to work
There are 3 advantages to riding a bike to work; it saves money, helps the environment and exercising. Riding a bike to work saves on the gas and parking. With the amount of things you can fit in a bike or basket, your brain won’t be tempted to make extra stops at groceries or any other shopping needs.
6. Stay away from Open a new account and Get Cash Deal.
There is nothing free in this world, other than the air you breathe. Bank’s offer cash deals or rewards when opening a bank account, but there is a fine clause that asks you to be with the bank for a number of years and they will charge you money every month for the account. Eventually, you end up giving more money to the bank.
7. Save on Energy Bill
Track your energy usage every month. In your energy bill, there is a breakdown of how much energy was used for the last 12 months. Based on that, you can check your windows or doors for any crack or openings. Consider opening a window when nice weather is outside and have natural air flow into the house.
8. Know your worth
If you’re good at doing something at work; don’t be afraid to ask for a raise. Employers don’t want to let the good Employee go. Once you get the raise, plan on investing those money towards building a brighter future.
9. Use extension while online shopping
There are many great extensions like Honey and Rakuten that help you find a coupon when shopping online and it automatically finds a coupon and applies it to your check out cart with one click of the button. You can also earn rewards which can be used for gift cards or cashback.
Check out our post on best extension: Best Coupon Code Browser Extension in 2021.
10. Check for coupons on Flipp for In-store shopping
Just like online shopping coupons, you can actually save money by using coupon code app, Flipp, for In-store shopping. Flipp is available for both iOS and Android Devices. You can plan ahead and check weekly shopping flyers for any available coupons.
11. Save Money by Keep Using your old phone
Your phone is worth more than you think, you don’t need to trade in your old phone for a new one. Phone Manufacturers lure people into buying a new device by promising a better performance phone, but in reality your old phone just works fine. Phone manufacturers promise better taking photos and video; but hardly few people use 4K video features in the phone. Once you share those photos or videos through a message sharing file, photo or video performance will go down eventually.
12. Repair broken items
When something is broken doesn’t mean it is not working. By learning some DIY or watching some DIY YouTube video, you can actually fix what is broken by yourself. But it is also wise to know when you call a professional for repair or not.