5 Surprising Ways to Save $$$!
5 Unconventional or Surprising, yet Simple Ways to Save $$$!
It’s time to start saving money, and you can do it this year! If last year has left you broke and wondering how you can change that for this year’s end, try a few of these surprising, yet simple, tips on saving money.
**BONUS TIP** – Use the Reverse 52 Week Money Challenge Printable to save $1387 in ONE Year!
Save what you spend
Do you buy $4 coffees every morning? That’s $20 a week you spend on indulgences. If you can spend that, you can save that. Basically, stick $20 a week into a cookie jar or envelope. If you think you can’t save that each week, then you can’t afford to spend that each week. It’s really that simple and keeps you accountable for how much you spend as opposed to how much you save.
Do your laundry properly
Are you following the washing instructions on your laundry? If not, you’re wasting money. Following those instructions keeps your clothes looking better, longer, and allows you to spend less on clothing. Clean out all pockets, match like colors, zip and button and fasten everything up so it doesn’t catch on other clothes and snag, and hang clothes to dry as much as possible. This saves heating and reduces shrinking.
Turn parties into potlucks
Want to host a party and save money? Turn all parties (even weddings) into potlucks! This saves you money and time, allows your guests to be involved, and gives them the green-light to do something similar at their own gatherings. Start the trend among your social circle in 2014 and you’ll all have less stress and more money.
Take online surveys
If you have 20 minutes a day that you’re killing online, go ahead and jump over to sites like Mindfield Online (My personal favorite!) and take a few online surveys. Each survey is worth a certain amount of money… and they have one of the lowest cash-outs of all companies! Only $5! Do enough of these and you could take yourself out to eat every other week, saving at least $50 a month in cash, which is a savings of $600 a year!
Avoid sales
Ok, this may seem backwards when trying to save money, but think about it like this: You see a Christmas sale in January and you convince yourself that you need to buy the things in the sale. But do you really need them, or are you just buying because it is on sale? These types of impulse buys add up quickly. Don’t let them ruin your budget or savings plan just to give yourself a false sense of saving.
These are all awesome tips! I thought about the 52 week money challenge, but it is more complicated than I have time for right now. I started working a new job last week. It doesn’t pay a lot, but it’s more than we were making. A couple days after I started I got one of those letters in the mail from a different bank than I normally use offering me $100 if I open an account with $25 and direct deposit at least $50 every month. I decided that this is a great way to save some emergency money that is accessible without being too easy to get to! I will save $700 this way by the end of the year, and I won’t even have to think about it! My job will deposit it there for me!