Smart Strategies for Saving Money: Practical Tips for Financial Success

With post-COVID inflation, it seems like everything has gotten more expensive. In this case, it is true. Many items have seen significant price increases over the past couple years. These price increases have put increasing strain on household budgets. While inflation has led to more expenses for the same goods, income generally has stagnated. People might be seeing 3-4% increases in their salary, but few people are seeing increases that keep up with inflation. This dynamic makes saving money even more important. Increasing your income may be an option, but decreasing your expenses is almost always an option for balancing your household budget. Let’s look at some ways we can lower expenses.

1. Create (and keep) a budget: I spend a lot of time talking about this, so I won’t belabor this point here, but keeping a good budget is one of the most effective tools to decrease your expenses. The biggest reason for this is just awareness. When you consistently see how much you are spending, you tend to spend less. For more information on creating a budget, check out this article.

2. Cut Unnecessary Expenses: Almost everyone I have worked with spends money on things that aren’t strictly speaking necessary. Within reason, this isn’t a problem. However, unnecessary expenses should be some of the first to get cut when money gets tight. Some common areas I would classify as unnecessary include eating out, gas station purchases (not including gas), alcohol and snacks at the grocery store, and subscriptions. Generally, people won’t cut these completely but can still decrease spending in these areas. Maybe cancel some of the subscriptions but keep a few. Decrease the number of times you eat out in month. These unnecessary expenses become habits for us, and we get very attached to them. They are, however, unnecessary, so look to cut from these first.

3. Meal Planning/Cooking at Home: If we’re going to eat out less, that naturally means eating at home more. For me, meal planning is one of my least favorite activities. I have seen, though, how much money can be saved through effective meal planning. Good meal planning limits wasted food (and thus money) and takes your time and cooking level into account. There are a number of apps and websites that can help with this. They will take your family’s food preferences into account and develop a meal plan for the week. The better ones also try to limit the amount of wasted ingredients. The app I have been using lately is called ‘Intent.’ Meal boxes can also be a good option here. They come with prepackaged and portioned ingredients and make the process fairly easy. They are, of course, more expensive than using a free app, but they remove much of the work and are much cheaper than restaurants.

4. Comparison Shopping: For purchases that are necessary, shop around to find the best deals. This is especially true for bigger purchases, but can make a difference in grocery or clothing shopping as well. While saving $0.50 on a loaf of bread might not seem like a big difference, if you can save a bit on most or all of your groceries, you might see your grocery bill drop by $30-50. This can save a couple hundred dollars over the course of a month. The idea of comparison shopping is to determine what you need and where you can get it the cheapest. Now, I want to say that it doesn’t always mean buying the absolute cheapest thing you can. Quality is something that costs money, but better quality items may save you money in the long run because your not replacing the item as often. This is why determining what you are looking for is important. Quality may be part of that. I think of this like check boxes: Determine the boxes you need to check off with your purchase. Then shop around for items that check those boxes. Finally, you can compare the prices of those items. Using this method, your need is satisfied without overspending.

5. Public Transportation/Carpooling: For many people, gas for their cars makes up a significant portion of their monthly expenses. This number is usually in the hundreds of dollars per month and represents one of the largest single expense categories in most peoples’ budgets. Limiting driving for non-essential purposes can help decrease spending on gas, but only by so much. To make a larger impact in this category, consider carpooling of public transportation. In urban areas, public transportation is typically available for a fraction of the cost of driving your own vehicle. It will take some planning, and you may have to allow more time to get to and from work, but it will save money. Most cities that offer public transportation will have route maps and schedules on their websites for you to plan your route. Rural areas rarely offer public transportation. In this case, carpooling is your best option. Ideally, a coworker lives relatively close to you. However, someone who lives near you and whose work location is close to yours will also work. Another option here is to drive with your spouse if you both work near each other and your schedules are similar. This money-saving option may not work for everyone, but it can be a significant savings if it does work for you.

6. Energy and Water Conservation: This is a common area people turn to when looking to cut expenses. I won’t spend too much time here as there are many articles online about how to limit expenses in these categories. Many people (especially us dads 😊) will make sure lights are turned off when they don’t need to be on. This is, of course, a good idea, but this doesn’t make as big a difference to your electricity bill as you might think. This is especially true if you already use energy-efficient lightbulbs. Appliances are the big culprits when it comes to electricity and gas usage. Energy-efficient appliances will help, but of course those cost money. One the biggest things you can do that won’t cost you money (will, in fact, save you money) is to adjust your thermostat. Set it warmer in the summer and colder in the winter so your AC and furnace don’t run as frequently. For water, shorter showers are one of the biggest behavioral changes you can make. Otherwise, leaky faucets fixed. Constantly dripping faucets waste a lot of water (and therefore money).

These are only a half dozen strategies for saving money. This list could go on forever, and there are countless articles on the internet discussing this very topic. However, I tried to pick some of the top strategies that I believe can make the biggest difference quickly. If you are looking to balance (or just improve your budget) by cutting your expenses, consider implementing some of these strategies. If you feel you need help for any reason, contact me. I would love to help you improve your financial life.

Subscribe to the blog for more helpful articles.