For anyone trying to save money any little hack helps a lot! It’s so hard to save money when the prices for everything keep increasing but if we change some of our habits there are things that we can do that can help us to save money in the long run. These money hacks will save you hundreds of dollars monthly and thousands over time!
The great thing about these hacks is that they involve things that we use, activities that we perform everyday and habits that we have grown into. This means that we have the power to change our financial lives without having to pay anyone. These money hacks will save hundreds of dollars with some effort on your part will enable you to reach financial freedom.
Money Hacks that Will Save you Hundreds of Dollars
Table of Contents
No spending challenges
Start a saving challenge that will help you to intentionally think about money. This hack has been used by so many people including me. You can share the challenge with your spouse or friends and even make it a competition. There’s so much strength in community when it comes to challenges like this.
When you succeed in completing a challenge like this there is motivation to keep going and trying even bigger ones. For your first challenge you could create a journal that tracks what you spend but that also highlights what you want to avoid spending your money on. I have challenged myself not to buy clothes for a whole month and then two months and so on. Normally I would go to the mall every weekend and spend close to $50 on clothes I didn’t need. With this challenge I would save close to $200 every month!
Assess you spend
This hack calls for a seat down at your dinner table to take a hard look at what you spend your money on. I noticed a while back that I was subscribing to a service I didn’t need or use without even realizing it. I could have been saving hundreds if I had just taken the time to do an audit of my expenses.
If you take a serious look at your monthly or weekly spend you will find things that you can cut back on or opportunities to pay less. You may even find that there are expenses that you can eliminate. I hate wastage and wasting my hard-earned money sucks!
Automate your savings
This is one of the greatest money hacks of all time. If you can save without thinking about it then it will be easier in the long run. I usually set an amount to go straight to my savings account from my paycheck. For example if I make $500 per week then I have $100 deposited into my savings account. When the balance which is $400 hits my checking account that’s my spending money.
This means that my savings are taken care of and anything what’s left over from the $400 would be an additional saving which feels like a little bonus to me. I have been frugal most of my life so little things like this make me happy.
Another hack with automating your savings is limiting access to the savings account that way you don’t end up jeopardizing your hard work by spending what you are trying to save. Make it difficult to spend your saved money easily.
Use Coupons or Rewards
Coupons are life savers and if you use them well you can save plenty of money. I am not an extreme couponer but I love a bargain when I can find one. When I have a ‘no spending’ challenge, I tend to use coupons or rewards I have earned on my credit cards. I have used coupons to save on diapers, clothes, shoes and even big-ticket items like cameras. If there is a deal out there, I try to find it.
I also use the rewards that I earn from credit cards to shop. I often end up paying close to $0 with rewards. You do have to be careful with credit cards to ensure that you pay the balance every month to avoid interest charges that would make the rewards meaningless or counterproductive.
30 Day Rule
If you have something that you really want to buy and that’s very expensive take 30 days to determine if you really need it. I have talked myself out of expensive purchases using this hack. If a new phone comes out and everyone is cueing to buy it I ask myself if I really have a need for an upgrade. I then shelf that decision for a month and by the time the month is over I find that I really didn’t want to make the impulse buy.
Just like a tattoo some of the purchases we make can have a big impact on our financial wellbeing so it’s always a good idea to do the due diligence before taking the leap.
Track prices
I use this hack all the time. As someone who loves to travel this hack comes in handy is setting up price alerts for flights and hotel deals. Once you set it up you get notified whenever there is a price change and I have saved thousands over the years with this hack.
Another way to track prices is to find deals that have been posted on department store websites. I watch prices for things that I want and if I’m lucky the price often falls as the season ends.
Cook at home or Meal Plan
This is one of the oldest money saving hacks in the world. When I see people buying breakfast and lunch everyday and then going out to dinner every other night of the week I wonder where they get the money from. Eating out is expensive y’all!
I work in a big city which means that lunch is an average of $10 and breakfast is $5. That’s $15 per day and $75 per week. In a month that’s $300 and if you add the weekend which could be an average of $100 that’s $700!!! Have I convinced you to look at how much you spend on buying breakfast, lunch and eating out?
Grocery shopping for a week would probably be around $100 for a family. If you can start cooking at home and meal planning you have the potential for big savings!
Pay off debt
I have always insisted on ensuring that I keep consumer debt at a low. Credit card debt can be draining on finances and the big interest rates suck even more! Look at your debt and start thinking about using the snow ball effect to pay it down. Avoid getting into more debt as you work on paying down your current debt.
A trick I have learned is to pay off debt in instalments. If you have a monthly payment break it out into weekly or biweekly payments to play around with the principal balance and eventual interest charge. If your debt balance is high this could lead to huge savings by the time you complete the payments.
Shop online
Shopping online is one of the best inventions since bread. You can price match immediately and decide what works best for your budget. This means that you can also shop around for the best deals. I bought an expensive designer stroller for my sister at a huge price cut just by shopping online. If the local store has a better deal, then take it but always as a rule of thumb shop online for the best deals.
Also, on sites like Amazon you can track prices and if you shop there, they will send you an alert when a deal comes in for the item you were shopping for. I love cyber Monday and often prefer it to waking up at ungodly hours to fight off people at the mall.
Reuse things
Remember your college days when it was easier to use plastic because of the cleanup. I have since become more environmental conscious and prefer to use materials that are reusable and friendly to the environment. This means that you reuse items even at work. Bring in your utensils and avoid using plastic. Wash them after for the next use. For our homes it means finding ways to repurpose the things we already have and avoiding hoarding and accumulating things that we don’t need.
Drink Filtered water
Stop using plastic! In line with reducing plastic stop buying bottled water. You could save so much money by drinking filtered water. It tastes the same as bottled water and it’s a lot cheaper and good for the environment. Another great hack is to buy a reusable bottle that you can use on the road. Most places have safe drinking water and I have noticed that airports now have hot and cold drinking water fountains. Have you ever tried to buy water at the airport? It is so expensive and you could save a couple of dollars by bringing your own bottle.
Be Energy Efficient
Be more efficient with how use energy in your home by using the thermostat more efficiently. Turn the temperature up or down depending on the season by a few degrees. This will likely save you some money every season whether its summer or winter and you will barely feel the difference. This is one of those money hacks thats can save hundreds of dollars that we grew up watching our parents doing and didn’t even notice!
Do you read those energy usage reports that utility companies send? Every time I come in as more efficient than my neighbors, I feel like throwing a party.
Smart thermostats are also great because you can control the temperature of your house remotely. This means that when you leave you can set it down low and then restart it before you come home.
Keep up with Maintenance
Avoid costly mistakes by keeping up with maintenance for things like cars and household stuff. I learned this the hard way when I avoided doing an oil change on my car. A simple $30 turned into hundreds of dollars later. Ensure that you have A/C units, boilers and piping maintenance in your house up to date. These can cost a lot of money if you don’t keep up with them. Also, if machinery and equipment are not maintained properly, they run less efficiently which costs means more money out of your pocket eventually.
Automate Your budget
If you aren’t super savvy with budgeting, you don’t need to worry about that anymore! There are apps that will analyze your information and prepare a budget for you. The apps are so smart that they will even give you money saving opportunities. For example, if you have an expense that constantly shows up on your statement the app will suggest that you avoid that expense essentially giving you suggestions for cutting back. This could lead to savings in the end.
Some of the best budgeting apps out there include Mint, Good Budget and Digit. They all have different quirks that differentiate them but at the core they all do the same thing which is automate your budgeting for you to enable you to save more money.
Create an Emergency Fund
This has been one of the most popular money hacks because an emergency fund requires that you cut back and set money aside for yourself. Anything could happen that would require money quickly. Save yourself the hustle of having to borrow from friends or worse using credit cards that have high interest rates.
Ask for lower Interest Rates
Whether it’s finding a lower interest rate for your mortgage or credit cards if you have a good credit rating you can save tones of money by asking for a lower rate. This is one of the money hacks that can save hundreds of dollars is not used often enough. Consolidation of debt may sometimes lead to lower interest rates, so this is a great option to pursue. Refinancing with a different bank may help get better interest rates so shop around and see if there are opportunities to save.
Stop Expensive habits
Do you know what the price of a pack of cigarettes is? The government tries to tax people to avoid smoking because it’s not good for your health. If you can stop smoking it will save you money especially if you smoke a lot. Drinking alcohol and gambling are also expensive habits that if stopped can save thousands of dollars. I walk into the convenience store sometimes and find people buying hundreds of dollars’ worth of lottery tickets. Remember the house always wins.
Assess the habits that you fund and try to save money by getting rid of them or controlling how much you engage in them.
Stop replacing
Stop replacing things that are still usable just to be trendy. I see people who upgrade their phones every cycle a new phone comes out. It doesn’t matter that you get a trade in value because at the end of the day it is still your money that you don’t have to spend to replace a perfectly usable phone!
If you can repurpose things, then even more power to you. I have a Pinterest board full of creative ways to repurpose things that we already have. Another great way to save is to buy gently used stuff. Practice caution with this as not everything is great second hand but if you find a great deal take it. I once found a snowblower that was hardly used at a yard sale that saved me a few hundred dollars!
Use generic brands
Buying brand names sounds great but when you must pay a premium for the same thing it’s time to see if you are getting any extra value. Brand name diapers are sometimes double the price for a generic brand and guess what they work the same. Using generic brands is one of the best money hacks that will save you hundreds of dollars especially for household products. This is tissue, soap, detergent etc We used to pay close to $40 for a pack of diapers until we found and tested a generic brand for half the price that works the same!
Save your raise and bonus
This money hack is usually tricky because every year after you get a raise everything else also increases in price which means that you are almost at net zero. The way that I see it though is that there are people who don’t get raises and they continue to thrive financially. If I can take my raise and leverage it towards saving more then I can see the real value of a 1% to 3% raise which may seem small but big over time.
I stopped viewing bonuses as spending money. Instead I see them as a way of increasing my financial safety net and overall net worth. If you can use your bonus to create significant savings in interest payments and such then you can get ahead of mortgage and car payments using your bonus.
Get rid of subscriptions
One if of the greatest money hacks that will save hundreds of dollars is getting rid of subscriptions. Subscriptions are some of the worst money pits that go unattended. There are magazines, apps, services and memberships we pay for that we don’t use. Whether it’s a book subscription or a meal subscription there are opportunities to save. For example, you could borrow books from your local library for free or you could cook your own food that you have bought from the grocery store. Convenience is great but it comes at a price that could be a savings for you.
Bonus Item: Cable
Many people struggle with cable so I recommend stopping your cable subscription for a month or two. Try to subscribe to Netflix or Hulu and see if you can survive. I bet you will! I personally love Hulu because it has so many great options and has a great price point at $5.99 right now.
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