I often look back at when I was in college or high school even and wish I had listened to everyone about saving money. Many a mall trips to buy pointless things that I never wore or used could have been money in the bank for my future. But, no sense in dwelling on the past. Time to worry about the now. I’ve been married for about two years and we are in the process of buying a home. Which means we will be spending a TON of money. Why? Because owning a home is expensive. We have closing costs, moving, furniture for rooms we don’t currently have in our two bedroom apartment and bills that we haven’t had before.
With that said, we have been trying to save money in any areas we can. Some things are logical while others involved work and patience. So I want to share my tips in saving a few bucks with you.
1)CUT GOING OUT! I know, I know, it’s an obvious one. We don’t go out often for activities and try to do what we can at home. This means eating as well. Luckily we are always working, so eating out is not something we have a lot of time for, but even on weekends, we try to eat in. When we go out, in New York, we are spending easily between $40-$60 for one meal. When we eat at home, we probably average about $15-$20 per meal, depending on what we have. I try to cook meals that have leftover potential to stretch our dollars even more.
2) Cut spending on things you don’t really need- So most of us have areas in life that we spend money on that we don’t need. Ours was cable and a house phone. Like I mentioned, we are always at work, which doesn’t leave us much time for talking on the phone at home and we barely watch cable. It made sense for us to get rid of it. Will I miss The Real Housewives of Orange County and The Walking Dead? Yes. lol But at the end of the day, we have HULU, Netflix and Amazon Prime, so we have plenty to keep us entertained. No need to spend more money each month.
3) Downsize– Ok, so you’re probably wondering what I mean by this since we don’t own a home. Well, we do own cars. Cars cost a TON of money but the are a necessary evil where I live and with my husband’s job. For those of you who can have one car in your family, do it! AND DON’T LOOK BACK! I fully support only having one vehicle. You will save a ton of money. For me that was not an option. Although I commute to work and my husband drives, he also works weekends often and needs the car. That means that if I need to go anywhere (laundry, grocery shopping, family events, etc), I would need to ask someone to take me or wait until my husband came home. So, one car was out. The weekend is my only chance to do a lot of errands, so I needed a vehicle.
However, what we did to save some money was downsize on the vehicles we own. I own my car outright, but my husband leased. As the end of his lease approached, we went to Nissan and asked what deal we could get. We spent nearly two days back and fourth with them, but in the end we got a new car for HALF of what we were paying for the original car. Well worth it! Yes we still have a monthly payment but it is much smaller and we have a reliable vehicle that we can take on longer trips. Yes, mileage is limited but that care is not driven during the week, so it works for us.
4) Shop around– While we were looking to reduce monthly payments, we took getting the new car and cutting those payments as an opportunity to cut our insurance. While at the dealership they have you sit with an insurance agent who tries to get you go with the insurance that they make a commission on. Don’t do it! I did my research before we went and received a quote from Geico showing that we could cut the insurance payments in HALF. I told the agent I was set on Geico and in the end, I reduced my payment in half. So now, we pay less for two cars than we did previously with one car. TIP: many insurances will give you a discount for having multiple vehicles!
5)Use what you own– Sounds dumb, but I found that so many people have an abundance of crap, yet they still buy stuff. For example, Bath and Body Works is having a semi annual sale. Tons of people are going to stock up on lotions and shower gels. Do they really need it? Probably not. I personally am guilty of this, I will see a new scent and need to own it. But i have tried to make it a habit to go through everything I own so I can make a note of what I currently have. In going through everything I own, I probably have enough body lotion to last me a year (maybe more). So now when I see sales and think that I need something because it’s a good deal, I can note that I have something at home that needs to be used.
6) DIY- It’s so easy to go to the nail salon or hair salon or even Starbucks. We live in a world in which convenience has become something we need. Convenience though comes with a price. You could be saving so much money by carving out a little extra time and doing things yourself. A bottle of nail polish is between $3-8 bucks, and a manicure is also about $8. You are going to get 30 manicures out of one bottle of nail polish!
I love Starbucks as much as the next girl, but’s it’s expensive! I’ve started brewing my own coffee at home and sticking it in the fridge. Now when I’m craving an iced coffee, I don’t need to go out, it’s in my home and I save $5. (The same amount of money that my bag of coffee cost).
So there you have it, some of my tips for saving money. Let me know what tips you have for saving!