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Many people will likely consider themselves to be bad with money. In fact, a 2023 survey by National Debt Relief found that only 27% out of 2,000 American adults rated their money-saving habits as “excellent.”
There are many reasons a person may fail to save money, whether it’s ill-advised expenses or credit card misuse. Fortunately, people on Reddit who have seemingly mastered their finances are sharing valuable tips for those in dire need of change.
Whether or not you’re struggling with your monetary situation, these pieces of advice are worth taking note of. Be sure to save this article for future reference.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I sleep on all impulse purchases over $20.
It used to be $100 but over the years I realized I still bought too much junk o a whim.
RELATED:
#2
I make and bring my lunch and drink to work every day. No going to vending machines, Starbuck's, snacks, no restaurants. What I bring is also much healthier.
Buy used but good condition cars, phones, tools.
I also use my public library as much as possible. Books, audiobooks, music downloads, magazines, newspapers, fishing poles, wifi hotspot devices are all free at mine.
#3
Just because something is on sale doesn’t mean you will save money.
#5
Avoid recurring subscription services
learn how to cook
Avoid delivery food at all costs. If you want to eat make food or go pick it up.
If you have any cash saved, which is a choice. For the love of Christ put it some account that makes interest. You can open a E*trade account and get 3.75%. Not life changing but don’t let the banks use you money for literally no interest.
R Dennis 2 hours ago
Avoiding deliveries at all costs has caveats. Sometimes there are deals that save you 30+% on the food. I have only done delivery twice - both times, the online cost was the same as pickup, but BOGO. So, even with delivery and tip, it was ⅓ less than getting it regularly. (I'd get 2 BOGOs)
#6
Every time I consider buying a coffee or buying lunch instead of taking food from home, I’ll tell myself to think about the savings I can make. If I successfully talk myself out of the purchase, I’ll transfer the money I would have spent to my savings account. Easy way to put aside an extra $20-30 a week.
#7
-If you’re looking for something that can be a used item, like a bike. Go to Craigslist or Facebook marketplace before buying new
-Avoid DoorDashing food and cook at home
-Look at your current spending habits and determine what is essential and what can be minimized (buying store brand groceries, thrifting)
-invest in good quality clothing and shoes. Long term, it’s cheaper to buy one pair of nice, non-slip work shoes than repeatedly replacing cheap shoes.
#8
Pay yourself first. Set x amount of percent that goes straight to savings. If you save the scraps to savings... you aren't saving.
Easier said than done sometimes though...life happens.
#9
When you get a raise, put the extra away. Don't increase your spending.
#10
Review your subscriptions and cancel anything that you really don’t use. Be sure to check things that renew annually, not just monthly charges.
Kathy Dragonfly 6 hours ago
if you consider it worth keeping, check if the annual fee is not considerably cheaper than the monthly one (often you get 2 months free) of course this is a bigger amount at once, which might not be feasibly if your budget is tight
#11
Don't start smoking or vaping.
Rowley Birkin, QC 2 hours ago
Please do not start smoking - as a lifelong smoker I promise you it is not worth it.
#12
Never stop making a car payment.
Most of the time after people paying off their car that’s it, it’s over, now they have hundreds of dollars freed up that they can do whatever with. My advice (got this from someone a while back) is to never stop making that payment but instead set that money aside for a future car. The reason is 3 fold, when you inevitably need a car you’ll have a nice down payment ready, your car payments will be lower or nonexistent, and the best part is since that amount is already being set aside you won’t have to figure out how to suddenly free up hundreds of dollars from your budget.
You’re welcome.
Firstname Lastname 7 hours ago
My first car was an inexpensive thing my well off aunt bought for me, bless her soul, and I worked for her for a few years to pay it off. Instead of just accepting my luck, I saved the money I didn't spend on a car payment every month and years later was able to pay for a newer car out of pocket. Still don't have a car payment.
#13
Plan your groceries and your meals.
List the things you need, the things you want, your budget, and have whatever flyers your local store has.
If you *need* something now (like toilet paper, soap, or actually nutritious food when your fridge is empty) buy it now. Try to pick stuff on sale if it's available.
If you *want* something and can't talk yourself out of it, at least buy it without going over budget. Try to pick stuff on sale if it's available.
If you can, check out whatever stuff is on sale ahead of time and *plan your meals* so you can spend the least amount of money and eat every last scrap of it.
If you're way under budget and all your planned meals are accounted for, the extra money goes into savings. OR you can leverage sales to get extra stuff to cover your WANTS at a later date.
Example: I have a few packs of bacon in my freezer that I bought at a 60% discount with surplus budget a few months ago. Saw the sale, saw I had extra money for the week, stocked up.
We do this every time we see a major sale: grocery shop for our future selves.
Tobi Ornot 16 minutes ago
As a child i got 3 Bucks and came home with a bag full of food. Today impossible - to many cameras.
#15
Go two weeks, ideally a whole month if you can where you only pay for absolute necessities. No take-out, no restaurants, no shopping.
So many people don't realise how much they spend on random stuff. Pay your bills, cook and eat at home.
Ripley 7 hours ago
Alternatively, set one weekly "treat" - breakfast and lunch are cheaper meals for going out than dinner. Don't buy a bazillion drinks (even at breakfast/lunch) they tend to be really expensive for what they are. Put a limit on what you're going to have/spend. You can still enjoy eating out if you factor it in as part of a plan and don't just go off-piste, so to speak, and drop a bunch of cash on unanticipated meals.
#16
Learn how unit-pricing works and buy on that. It's the price PER oz, lb, etc and it's displayed on nearly every pricing label in the store.
Buying a smaller package because it's cheaper (in absolute terms) is often the most expensive option.
Immediate gain for a simple shift in mindset.
#17
Know the difference between want and need. If you're not sure, don't buy something you see right away, wait a month or more. If it's a want, you probably haven't thought about it at all, if it's a need, you thought of many possible uses. Then go and buy it.
#18
Don’t spend it on things you don’t NEED.
Make a snack for yourself before ordering off Uber Eats.
Leave things in your Amazon cart for 24-48 hours before purchasing them.
Keep snacks in your car so you don’t buy a whole meal if you get hungry out and about.
Use the Apartment gym if you have one and learn about functional fitness instead of just body building.
Go over your subscriptions and delete the ones you don’t use. .
#19
Browsing the library can fill the same need of walking around stores and shopping. Its like this gathering instinct...like hunter/gather.
#21
If your work does direct deposit with your paycheck, they can usually split it between multiple accounts.
If so, have a small amount of your paycheck directly deposited into your savings account. It's functionally the same as doing it yourself but feels psychologically easier because it happens before you "see" your paycheck deposited.
#22
For me, it’s buying certain items only on sale. I’m mostly talking about food and you have to be careful because some items are always “on sale.” But specifically stuff like ground beef that’s $7+ per pound, and it regularly goes on sale for $2-4 per pound. .
#23
Your best bet is to keep track of everything you spend for a whole month or even two. It's never going to work unless you know exactly what you need for a month.
#24
Tax yourself. Decide on a tax amount that is manageable, say 5%. Put it in a savings account. Then at the end of the month reevaluate and see if you can tax yourself even more.
#25
Learn to cook and stop buying trash for your lunch!! At every place I ever worked in I’m usually the only one bringing lunch from home.
#26
If there’s an item that you really want and will last many years, buy it at a discount at the ‘wrong’ time of year e.g. buy winter coats in the spring sale, summer footwear in November etc.
#27
Buy stuff in cash is an old trick. It hurts more to spend a hundred bucks of green in your hand than credit. And Discipline discipline discipline.
#28
At a certain point it becomes easier to make an extra $10 than to save an extra $10.
Frugality is good to a point, but you also need to know that you can increase your income as well.
Back when I was around 27 years old my wife and I were having trouble making ends meet due to some life stuff that happened. I was reading a book on how to make money at the time and it talked about how 10 minutes of discomfort is often what stands between us and a lot more money. I scheduled a meeting with my boss the next week and asked for a raise, and thus increased our household income by about 25%. No amount of frugality would have helped us as much as those 10 minutes of discomfort.
P.S. If you have never asked for a raise, this is your sign to do it. It is normal to ask for a raise and it is worth it.
#29
If you can use credit cards responsibly, they save me a lot of money. For instance, the card I use for groceries gets me 6% back and 3% back on gas along with other things. It adds up.
#30
Call your insurance company. For home and auto they like to automatically remove any reductions like having a sump pump, new hot water heater, proximity to fire hydrant...
You just have to call and have them add all those reductions back on. Saved us 100 a month.
#31
Take a portion of your paycheck every pay period and put it into a brokerage account that you have invested however you need to use the funds. Don’t attach any pulls or debit cards to that account.
Your monthly budget is now whatever is left of your check after that.
#32
Set up direct deposit with 10% going into a savings account. Leave that account off any online access.
#33
No-spend days/weekends. Entertain (or even feed) yourself with what you have at home and what’s already paid for.
#34
Buy groceries and cook at home as much as possible, instead of eating out.
It took me years to really sit down and realize how much money I was spending on food each week and month. I rarely brought lunch to work, choosing instead to eat out most days. The same thing happened at home, my wife and I often defaulted to takeout or going out to eat with our kids three or more times a week, rather than sticking to a regular cooking routine.
#35
Get rid of Amazon Prime, eBay, or any other app that makes it easy to make impulse purchases.
Disclosure: I probably need to do this 😅.
#36
I have an automated recurring transfer that just automatically move $50 from my checking account to my savings account every payday.
#37
Actually pay attention to grocery prices. When I had a job and felt stable, I would just buy whatever and never really think about the price that much, unless it was outrageously expensive. Then I got laid off and started really looking at prices and I found so many places to cut my grocery bill. Either by finding the product cheaper somewhere else, buying it in bulk, buying a cheaper brand, etc..And I also focused my grocery shopping around 2 things: staple items I eat every day, and 2 planned meals per week that have plenty of leftovers to last me and my husband 2-3 nights. Shopping like this helped keep my grocery bills down.
When it comes to shopping for literally anything else, I won't buy things unless I've thought about it for a month at LEAST. But frankly, even sleeping on a purchase for 24 hours will help you buy less. Sleeping on a purchase for a week is even better! I used to impulsively shop when I was younger, and I often ended up not wearing the clothes or using the thing I bought as much as I thought. I started telling myself that I have to wait to buy thing, and often I didn't want those things after I waited! There are still plenty of things that I buy after sleeping on it, but it really helps you narrow down that list to what you actually want.
And lastly, automatically split your paychecks into your checking, savings, and retirement funds. If you have to move money to your savings yourself, you often wont. And you get used to that paycheck amount and tend to spend more. If the money automatically goes into your savings, you often forget about it and get used to a lower paycheck and adjust accordingly. And if you aren't putting your money into at least a HYSA, open one NOW and transfer most of your savings into it. The interest rates are way higher and you can actually make money off your savings, unless the insanely low interest rate of a regular savings account. The money isn't as easy to access, it requires an ACH transfer which takes time, so I typically keep a small emergency fund in my regular savings account that I can instantly transfer to my checking account, just incase I need money immediately. But everything else is in my HYSA.
#39
The only simplest way to save money is spend less than what you earn. But still I know it is a struggle for a lot of people due to rent, food, utilities, social outings. Also, don’t buy a NEW car that cost more than your yearly salary unless you already saved up to pay majority of that car.
#40
It's slow, but it helps... Save the $5 you get back as change. You'd be surprised how often it happens and you don't really miss them. You could do it with other amounts too.
#42
Any time you sign up for a recurring billing service with a minimum term (eg, a gym, insurance, phone contract, etc) keep a copy of the terms and conditions at the time you signed. Save it in Dropbox or somewhere convenient. Also, use a credit card where possible and where it makes economic sense (no surcharge).
I have gotten a lot of money back through business and/or credit card chargebacks over the years (thousands of dollars) because I've exited contracts early due to terms being broken by companies.
#43
Wait 24hrs before making any discretionary purchase above a certain threshold.
Odds are the item will still be available to purchase after the initial ‘gotta have it’ spending impulse has passed.
#45
Whenever I stop myself being frivolous (i.e. don't buy that coffee, choose the cheaper option on the menu, eat at home instead of going out etc), I transfer that amount into my savings account. First month I did it there was like £350 there. Really helped me get into the swing of saving.
#46
Stop buying cheap stuff that you have to replace more often. Buy quality things that will last much longer, saving you money. See /r/buyitforlife
Don't buy an inkjet printer. You'll spend too much on the cartridges, they dry out, and they only last 200-300 pages. Buy a laser printer instead. The toner cartridges will save you money in the long run since the high-yield toner cartridges will print over 2,000 pages and the toner is already dry. And if you need to print photos, just send them to Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, etc. for cheap prints on printers that are much better than your HP Photosmart.
#47
What are the well known tricks?
For me it was 25 percent contribution to my 401K and a financial advisor for my investments.
This allowed me to retire at 52 1/2 years old.
#48
- Do not buy food items on sale in bulk because it's on sale... Too often you'll keep the item too long and the item expires, completely removing the amount you saved because you threw into the trash an amount usually MORE than what you saved in the first place.
- Organizing your food in a "first in, first out" system will help you prevent waste from food expiring. This can usually be just putting the newest item behind what you already had in the cupboard, but there are other ways as well which might work better for your current capabilities.
- There exists websites that can find recipes based on items you have that you want to use before it expires. This has the added benefit of preventing a stale rotation of the same old recipes week after week.
- The internet has many coupons... You should check for a coupon for anything you buy online, period. It's insane the companies that will have coupons on the internet, it's not just the biggest corporations.
#49
Use towels instead of napkins and paper towel. I've been using the same 50 for 5 years, haven't had to buy either since.
Cloth diapers are easier now than ever. Spent about $500 to diaper two kids. We're done, but most could get through a third.
Use/wash ceramic plates, bowls, silverware instead of the disposable alternatives. Cook food at home instead of takeout.
Boxed laundry detergent lasts WAY longer than the jugs, and they come in a recyclable vessel.
Invest in a good water bottle rather than buying disposables. If your home tap isn't palatable/safe invest in a good water filter (we use Zero water filter).
#50
Set an an automated recurring transfer to an investment account or long term savings account. Start with a small amount. You'll adjust to what you have left for the month.
Also learn to understand that you won't be able to have everything you want. You'll need to prioritise. If you're spending money on lower priority things, you can increase the amount on that automated recurring transfer.
#51
On the rare occasion I stop at a convenience store in the morning I’m always amazed and how many contractors, maintenance people, lawn care employees, etc are there buying breakfast, multiple energy drinks and so forth. That stuff is an expensive habit to do everyday.
#52
Start thinking of prices in after-tax income. In other words, that six pack of beer isn't costing you $8. It's really costing you $12.
Would you still buy that six pack? Well, okay, yeah. Totally. But you get my drift.
#53
If you want something on Amazon. I put it in my cart. Then I go back and move 99% of things to my save for later. Saves money and seems to scratch my consumer itch without actually spending the money.
#54
Set up your checking account to auto-transfer an amount to savings every time you get a paycheck. Doesn’t matter if it’s $10 or $100. It will start to add up.
Captain Kakapo 32 minutes ago
set it to $10 and at the end of the year you will be surprised... by what you can have for $120
#55
Here is one that's a bit different: I call it the out of sight out of mind technique.
Since we all look at the amount in our bank account, and that impacts the purchases we make.
I highly recommend opening an additional bank account at a different bank. Set an automatic transfer from your paycheck or from your bank to this new bank account.
Don't look at or log into the new bank account as often. If you need the money then pull from the new bank account. Otherwise try not to look at it.
This will make your main bank account look lower, and improve your purchasing decisions to save money.
#56
Don't pay for delivery service. Ever. If you're ordering pizza or a burrito, go and pick it up yourself.
And don't order through third-party apps. Call the restaurant itself.
#57
Understand what behavioral economists call the "pain of paying." The less pain of paying you feel, the more willing you will be to spend. People feel less pain of paying with a credit card, more when paying with cash. They have less pain when spending what feels like a bonus or found money, such as with a tax refund or gift card, which people feel they can spend frivolously. People feel less pain of paying with recurring payments, because they become used to them from hedonic adaptation. People feel low pain of paying for small things so the pain may fall below the threshold for them to restrain themselves (like a daily Starbucks that people get without thinking). Be careful when you feel less pain of paying than you should and you'll spend less on unnecessary things.
I wrote about this in my book "Wealth and Happiness" which is on Amazon. I just made the book free on Saturday and Sunday - I'm not trying to make money from the book, it was a passion project. (not available free for all countries, Amazon sets the rules not me).
#58
Spend less than what you make. Simple as that. Separate needs vs wants, eat at home, etc. Still treat yourself occasionally, but don’t go overboard. Managed to save a decent chunk between retirement and savings account by following this method and I’m in my late 20’s.
#59
If you have empty space in your fridge, fill it with containers of water. They maintain temperature better than air and save on electricity as your fridge actively cools less.
What do you think ?
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