My Favorite Ways to Save Money

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I am ALWAYS looking for ways to cut costs. I am a frugal (well, cheap) person and I like to save money. There are posts everywhere saying things like “Ways to Make Rent This Month” or “Make Extra Income” and they all have a bunch of things that are a serious waste of time. If anyone is making some real moola with “Swagbucks” by all means, let me know that I’m mistaken, but most of the suggestions make you pennies at the most. 

I want to give practical ways to save or make money that are not stealing time away from your busy life. Couponing is great for those people who are great at it and it really makes a difference, but for me, it caused more stress and I never really saved any money! It just took too much time for not enough reward for me. The tradeoff wasn’t worth it. When it came to groceries, I found even with trying to double up on coupons (which I am horrible at) I just really couldn’t beat Aldi prices. Which brings me to number 1.

Shop at Aldi

If you are buying groceries anywhere but Aldi, please reconsider. Name brands are EXTREMELY overrated. Granted you might be amazing at couponing and manage to get free name brand stuff. If so, awesome, teach me your ways!

I have grown up with Aldi food, and I’ll admit, that when I was a kid there were quite a few things that the Aldi version was NOT as good as the name brand stuff. Now though, they have really upped their game! The food is great and there are more choices available. I just love it!

When I am really on my A game, I can buy groceries for our family of four for under $40. Now, this with meal planning and some preparing but that’s not too shabby!

Shop Online

Unfortunately, we can’t get everything at Aldi. I totally would if I could! But for other things, I have found that I save a lot more when I shop online. When I am in a store, I often get distracted and end up buying things I don’t need. I also am not as savvy at finding the deals. I just find something I like and get it. Online, I can pop over to another site and see if there is something similar for a lower price. I also can find promotions and coupons without much thought!

Some people might think, “but shipping costs… Wouldn’t they cancel out the savings?” This is where planning has to come in. Most places have free shipping when you go above a certain dollar amount. I have not found this difficult to meet when I have created a list of our needs. 

Amazon has really become our best friend. Amazon Prime seems like it would not be a way to save money, but overall after you pay for Prime, the free shipping pays for it a million times over. I can shop deals and get it delivered which saves on gas and time and sanity (anyone else hate taking their kids to the store?). They even have discounted rates for EBT and Medicaid.

After a while you start to get a feel for how often you need to get your deliveries and can spread them out based on your family’s needs.

Get Cashback While Shopping

Along with the reasons listed above, I like shopping online so that I can get cash back through Ebates. I have written a whole post on why I love Ebates so much (If you want to learn more, read about it here). Briefly, it allows you to get cash back on online purchases. The amount you can get back varies store by store and they cycle through double and triple cash back so I like to keep an eye on which stores have the most cash back to see if they coincide with what we need.

Use this link to receive $10 with your first qualifying purchase!

I have found very few places that I would shop that are not on Ebates. Even places like EyeBuyDirect.com, which is where I get discounted glasses give cash back through Ebates. 

Another way to get cash back is to use a credit card with cash back bonuses. Ebates does have a credit card that you can use to get an additional 3% when you are using Ebates ON TOP of the regular percentage for that store. You can use it anywhere that accepts Visa to receive 1% cashback even if it is not an Ebates purchase.

There are also other credit cards that offer cash back. This is OK as long as you are only spending what is in your budget to spend and paying it off each month.

Personally, my husband and I have steered clear of credit cards even if we could get money back. I feel that it is too easy to start spending beyond your means. But if done well, this could work for you. 

Netflix, BABY!

We have NEVER had a TV service at our house. When we first got married, we just couldn’t afford more than the internet. It turns out, we didn’t even miss it. We pay for internet and stream everything! Netflix has pretty much been it. Paying for dish or satellite is SO EXPENSIVE! Take a second and think about how many of those channels you actually watch… Was it much? If it was, then maybe it’s worth it… But we found that a TV service was something that we could easily live without.

Now our T-Mobile covers our Netflix bill too so… Double savings!

If you decide to do Amazon Prime, you can enjoy Prime video as well! I don’t feel like the options are AS good as Netflix, but there’s Downton Abbey and Doctor Who so… Need I say more?

Thrift Stores

I am trying to get better at thrift store shopping. Really there is no reason not to. You can find great stuff! My issue is that I will find something that I love, but it’s not in my size. I have been better when I use online thrift stores like Thredup. I can set the filters to my own size and specify what I’m looking for (yet another reason shopping online has been better for me!).

But good old-fashioned brick and mortar thrift shops are still great and can help you keep your kids clothed when they grow an inch a week.

Minimalize

Minimalism does not only help save money, but it can help your household feel so much more manageable. You’d be surprised how many things we unnecessarily clutter up in our lives! 

Start small! I recently cleaned my cleaning cabinet of pretty much ALL my cleaning supplies and started using Force of Nature, a non-toxic, family-friendly, ALL-PURPOSE cleaner. I can not emphasize how LITTLE I spend on cleaning products. In fact I haven’t had to buy any for almost a year now. 

Create a Budget and Log Purchases

This is such an important part of saving money. If you don’t budget, you will most likely struggle even if you make a great paycheck. There have been times that we were making MORE money than ever before but struggling. Then there were times that we were not making very much money at all, but still adding to our savings. The difference was budgeting, tracking expenses, and sticking to the planned budget.

This does not have to be complicated. I LOVE using Dave Ramsey’s Every Dollar app and website. There are many other similar websites, but I have found this one very easy to use and it is already set up to work with Financial Peace University teachings, that we like. Most importantly it is free to use. A lot of other similar apps/websites cost money and I don’t feel are as user-friendly. There is an upgrade that you can pay to add the ability to import your purchases and just drag them to the correct category. We don’t use this, as the free version does exactly what we need.

We have the app on our phone and log every purchase. This is extremely important! When you are actually stopping and logging each purchase, it causes you to stop and think about the money you are spending. My husband’s excess spending is decreased considerately when he has to log everything. 

Utilize Your Local Library

Do you have a library card? Hopefully, the answer is yes! But… did you know that you can get so much more than just books with that card?

Your library has SO MANY resources that you can access for free. From activities to do as a family to online resources that you’ve probably been paying for, the library has so much that can help you save.

Don’t forget to go check out my reasons why you should have a library card HERE!

How Do You Save?

These are the ways that really helped my family. There are a lot of ways to save that are great, but just weren’t working for us, either because I’m not organized enough or they just didn’t apply to our lifestyle. What are some of your favorite tips for saving money? Leave some of your faves in the comments!

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