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Have a hard time saving money each month? We have 10 Practical Save Money Tips For People Who Have A Hard Time Saving that may make it easier to save money even if your bank account is currently in the red.
The first thing to understand is that the best way to save money is to set it on autopilot whenever and wherever you can. This means streamlining your life and cutting out things that you’re not using.
This does NOT mean giving away your HDTV or eating tuna for dinner every night. It also doesn’t require you to take a second job. The beauty of this list is that you can pick and choose where you want to streamline. Even one selection from this list can save you $100’s a year. But why stop there? Choose three or more of these ways to save money and increase the size of your bank account this year.
Here’s how it’s done.
10 Practical Save Money Tips For People Who Have A Hard Time Saving
1. Open Up A Dedicated Savings Account
Open a separate savings account with Capital One or your current financial institution. Set up an automatic transfer or direct deposit of 1% of your earnings each payday. You’ll also want this separate account to stash the money you’re saving as a result of streamlining your life.
How?
Deposit the cost difference (translate:savings) from using these tips into your new account. Cha – Ching!
2. Use An AppTo Save On Gasoline
Use the GasBuddy website and smartphone app to receive discounts at the pump. This is the same GasBuddy that many use to find the lowest gas prices in town. This crowdsourcing app provides information on gas prices, restrooms, customer service, and more. The app helps you plan your next pit stop.
Now this is where it gets interesting. Drivers using the Pay with GasBuddy service coupled with the GasBuddy smartphone app can save $340 per year on gasoline! The program is free to join and gives drivers 15 cents per gallon off their first purchase and a minimum of 5 cents off every subsequent fuel purchase.
3. This Ain’t Your Momma’s Library Card
The library isn’t just a place to check out hardcopy books, DVD movies and CDs anymore. You can read eBooks and eAudiobooks online via Overdrive. The Overdrive app is free but you’ll need your library card to access its features.
You can also use your library card to access music, movies and video content via the Hoopla app. This is also a free app. Download the app and talk to your local librarian for more information.
No need to buy another magazine at the checkout stand. Download the Flipster app and read popular magazines on your electronic device for free. This app also requires that you have an affiliation with your library.
4. One Channel Watchers Listen Up
We have a friend who only watches one television show. Just one. He doesn’t need 100+ channels that a local satellite provider tried to get him to sign up for. How about you? Do you or your family watch the CBS network?
With CBS All Access you can watch full episodes of live TV, CBS classic shows, daytime soaps (Hello – Bold and the Beautiful!) and more across devices. Last count there was over 9,000 available episodes. Some of the shows are even advertisement free.
5. Multi-Channel Watchers Listen Up
We are Amazon Prime members and have been for quite a while. One of the things we love that comes with the subscription is Amazon Prime Video.
Tons of television shows and movies are included. We like how the selection of movies changes frequently enough that there’s always something new to watch.
Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial
6. Let Them Buy Your Loyalty With Free Food/Drink
This is a twist on one of the practical ways to save money.
Many restaurants now have loyalty programs which equal free food and drink. Why? To keep you coming back for more, of course. Here at Earn It Save It, we use the Panera Rewards Card and the Chick Fil A app like there’s no tomorrow. The more we eat there, the more free food and drink we receive.
Start by writing down the last five places where you dined out. Include fast food. Now, check their websites to see if they have a loyalty program. Most loyalty programs are free.
To save even more when eating out, link your credit or debit card up with Swagbucks Local. Earn points and redeem for cash back. You can find local restaurants that take part in the program on their site.
7. Cash Back Portals Are the New Rebate Forms
We hear that back in the 90’s, people used to send their receipts and UPC labels along with a rebate form to get cash back on purchases.
Rebate forms still exist but there is a much simpler way.
Use Ebates to save up to an extra 40% by shopping online. They’ve partnered with over 1,800 stores so there are plenty of shopping choices. They recently partnered with some major retailers to provide in-store discounts too.
Top Cash Back is another cash back portal. They claim to have the highest rate of cash back – guaranteed.
My Points allows you to Earn Free Gift Cards for the Things You Do Online.
Ebates, Top Cash Back and My Points all work in a similar way. You start your online shopping at their websites. Another cash back style service we like is Paribus.
Paribus works a bit differently in that they let you know if a store owes you a refund based on price drops or late delivery after you’ve made the purchase. You keep 100% of the savings.
8. Automate Your Debt Payments
Debitize helps you avoid credit card late fees and get a handle on credit card debit at the same time.
This is the way it works.
- Make your normal credit card purchases
- Debitize deducts a designated amount from your checking account each day
- At the end of the month, they pay your credit card bill
Sign up with this Debitize link to get $10 credit towards your next credit card bill.
9. Pause Your Gym Membership
Notice we didn’t say “cancel your gym membership”. Here’s why. Your health is one of the most important investments you can make. But, to get the benefit of the monthly fees you have to actually use your gym membership. If you haven’t been to the gym in two weeks, we suggest considering other options for staying active and save money in the process.
First, see if your gym is willing to pause your membership for 30-60 days as opposed to losing you as a member. If they won’t then revise you membership level to the lowest allowed. This shouldn’t be a big deal if you haven’t been in a few weeks, right?
Now, take this time to try a few workout alternatives for free.
Alternative #1:
Get 1 Month COMPLETELY FREE + save 10% on your first 3 months at DailyBurn! (Code automatically applied at checkout!) They offer new online workouts every day and you watch them on your own schedule.
Alternative #2
BeachBody On Demand gives you a ton of online workout options too. Right now, they’re offering free unlimited access for 14 days.
10. Reuse Your Paper Stuff
Get one more use out of certain paper products by reusing them at least once. Here’s what we did. Throughout elementary school, our son attended birthday parties about twice a month. To save money on future parties, we collected the leftover gift wrap, gift boxes and tissue paper from the parties we attended. We also kept all the gift wrap from his parties. This way we could spend more on the actual gift (if we wanted).
If anyone recognized their wrapping paper, they never said anything.
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How will YOU save money? Which one will you try first? We’d love to hear about it in our comment section.
Love that the library made this list. I am a big believer of downloading books from my local library versus buying off of amazon. I read too fast for that!
Me too 🙂
Amazon prime has allowed us to get rid of cable, saving us almost $1,000 a year. These are all very creative tips. Thank you for sharing.
That’s awesome Lauren!