Here at The Bargain Radar, we love sharing easy money-saving tips with our readers. Whether you’re trying to save money for a vacation, new car, house, or just personal goals, these 11 tips should help you accomplish just that:
- Create a Budget – In order to have a better understanding of how much you’re spending, it’s always a good idea to create a budget for yourself. Having a budget for each category of spending can allow you to pinpoint where you’re overspending while finding ways to cut down on those specific expenses. This can be done on either a weekly or monthly basis, but this should be your first step on your journey to save money.
- Live on Groupon – You don’t have to completely cut out all the fun in your life, just because you’re trying to save money. You can still treat yourself to some fun activities with Groupon. They offer some of the best deals on a wide variety of experiences. Before you plan on going to an event or a restaurant, or really anything, always check Groupon, because they may have a deal for it. Have fun and save money at the same time? Count me in!
- Pay off your debt – Carrying a credit card balance for long periods can really drain your bank account. With high-interest rates, you could be paying large sums of money in interest fees for no reason. A huge way to save money is to really focus on paying down your credit card debt to avoid paying hefty interest fees. Using Fiona is a great way to consolidate all your debt, so you can stay on track and pay your debt quickly.
- Live in a personal finance app – Using a personal finance app is a great way to monitor your daily spending, because these apps auto categorize your spending, so you can easily target areas for improvement. It seems like there’s a new personal finance app popping up daily, but to help you narrow down the options, here’s a couple that we have personally used and love: Mint.com and Digit
- Stop smoking – If you love to smoke, you may not love the fact that it may be costing you thousands of hard-earned dollars each year. Not only is smoking unhealthy for you, but it is also unhealthy for your bank account.
- Ditch your cable company – Often times cable bills range around the $100 per month mark. Simply ditching your cable provider and opting into more wallet-friendly options can really help you rake in the savings. Here’s a few options that can replace your cable and never have you turn back: Netflix, Hulu, and DIRECTV NOW
- Buy pre-owned items – Not everything you need can be purchased pre-owned, but for the things that you’re able to find used, you should definitely opt for them. This is an easy way to save as much as half the value, or more, of a brand-new item. Just keep in mind that the quality of the items will vary, so make sure you do a thorough inspection before buying.
- Love Reading? – If you’re a bookworm, the cost of new books can quickly add up. A quick way to eliminate the added expense of buying a new book every month is to get a free membership to your local library. If the library isn’t really your cup of tea, you can always try a free 30-day membership to Audible. With an Audible membership, you get 1 free credit per month toward any title in their library, along with 2 free Audible Originals a month. In addition to these great benefits, you can get 30% off titles and access to exclusive sales and daily deals.
- Cancel your subscriptions – We all have subscriptions that we tend to forget about or rarely use. Why do we keep them? If you haven’t used a subscription in over a month, it may be time to part ways with it, because it’s slowly eating away at your bank account. Plus, these services will always be around to accept you as a customer again. If you’d rather not think about which subscriptions you have and need to cancel, Trim can help you do that for FREE! Just sign up to Trim and let them do all the work for you.
- Carpool with coworkers – If you have a coworker that lives near you and you get along fine together, it may be time for you guys to carpool to work. You would be driving half as much, meaning you’re saving half the amount you would spend on gas, just think about that!
- DIY – Every house has a pending project that needs some love and attention. You don’t always have to hire someone to do the work for you. You can save money by getting your hands a little dirty and doing the task yourself. Whether it’s hanging picture frames, mounting a TV on the wall, or even cleaning the house. In addition to saving money, if you have free time on your hands, you can also sign up Task Rabbit and people can hire you to do these tasks for them too, bringing in an extra source of income. Win-win!
