Everyone is always looking to save money! Whether you are struggling financially and you need more money to live a little easier, or you have enough money to live, but you’re looking to save money for your future, or a vacation, or whatever it may be! No matter your position, here are six ways to save money each month!
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1. First and most importantly, set up a budget plan.
To see where you can save money, you have to first see where you’re spending it. Write out each expense that you have, along with your total income. Say you or your family makes 60k a year, at your job, but you also have a side hustle, or various forms of random income, include it all in your budgeting!
My favorite way of seeing my budget is by creating a spreadsheet, then you can add to it and it will automatically calculate your totals for you! You can use Excel, and if you don’t have Microsoft and don’t want to pay for it you can use Open Office, it’s free and it works just as well.
We LOVE this awesome (and totally affordable) budget planner! See what you can completely eliminate
2. See what you can completely eliminate
Most families have quite a few expenses they can completely eliminate. If there are things that aren’t totally necessary, but you can’t live without, try to find a cheaper alternative.
A few examples of luxuries you can likely give up to save money are:
- Cable
- Premium music streaming services (Pandora, Spotify, etc.)
- Landline phones
- Bottled water
3. Pay for what you can in cash
It’s good practice to pay for a lot of your variable expenses in cash, like date nights, dining out, allowances you give yourself, and one HUGE one is GROCERIES! Most families have no idea how much they spend on groceries each month. When you use a card, you don’t really acknowledge how much you’re spending.
fTry giving yourself a set amount every month, then carry cash, and try to stay under budget, and have some cash left over. Keep that cash for the months you need extra money for groceries.
This envelope budgeting book is GREAT for using cash and keeping it organized by category.
4. Meal Plan
Meal planning is like, the secret weapon for saving money on food every month.
If you don’t have a plan for what you’re going to eat, you won’t know what to buy at the store. And if you don’t know what to buy at the store, you end up with a bunch of random stuff that doesn’t quite end up making a full meal.
Another tip to save money each month while meal planning is implementing for meatless meals, as meat can be quite pricey!
5. Transfer your debt to save on interest
If you have a decent amount of credit card debt, look into transferring it all to a card that has either a lower interest rate, or a card that has a long period of no interest.
If a credit card isn’t an option, try looking into a debt consolidation loan.
Look different types of credit cards, and what situations they benefit the most.
6. Create a bunch of different types of accounts
This technique has REALLY helped my family. By creating separate accounts to put your money into, you can always make sure you have enough for bills, activities, and emergencies.
Here are some of the different accounts we have:
Car insurance (our insurance is billed yearly, so we put away money each month for when it comes)
Car registration/repairs
Emergency fund
Home repairs
Vacation fund
Mortgage payment
Bills that charge to the credit card (I total what all the bills that charge to our credit card add up to, and I put that amount into this account so that I can transfer it to my card at the end of the month. This is a great way to make sure we’re not charging to my card more than I can afford to pay off each month.)
What are some things you do to save money each month?
Related Posts:
17 Tips for Saving Tons of Money and Getting Out of Debt
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Kayla is the content creator over at motviationformom.com. She is a wife and mother who loves to share all of the tips, tricks, and life lessons that she has learned over the years with all of her readers. Her primary focus is on children’s education, motherhood, and healthy family relationships!
I love the idea of separating accounts. I got everything mixed up sometimes, even though I have my budget plan. Thanks for the great tips!
Yes for sure!I regret not starting the separate accounts sooner! It would of helped prevent a good amount of credit card debt!
WE need to start doing this for our family. We have started to eliminate expenses we do not need, but I think we can trim more items. I like your idea of having separate accounts for certain expenses. I guess the best way to go about this would be to open them with an account that does not have any sort of monthly fees to continue to save money?
Yes for sure! I love our credit union, I totally suggest credit union over a bank, way less fees and hassle!
You and I think alike. I just posted something with similar tactics. I have to say using CASH is one of the best ways to save. When we didn’t, we really got offtrack! Thanks for posting!
Definitely! It’s so hard to spend cash, because you can physically see it withering away as your spending it, whereas on a card you’re oblivious!
I can personally vouch for these techniques. In my experience though, the separate accounts worked for me at first. Once I got used to what was going where, the habit was instilled and I got rid of the extras. Good information.
That’s awesome! So glad you were able to find a system that works well for you!
This is sooooo helpful! Thank you for such a post!
Of course! Budgeting is hard, anything we can do to help one another!
Love these tips, especially the separate accounts. I always try to separate everything so you know how much money you have for each thing -including an emergency fund! So important to prepare for the unexpected! I try and use credit cards more than cash though to build up good credit and for rewards, but I do stay on top of them as it’s easy to buy a lot of small things that add up without noticing!
Definitely! I have all of my automatic withdraw payments charge to my credit card for the points! It always covers paying for our Christmas presents at the end of the year!
Amazing!
I’m so glad I read this because it just affirms that what my partner and I are doing is correct. We do everything on this list.
xo, Helene
http://www.circleskirtsandpetticoats.wordpress.com
That’s great! It’s always reassuring to see that what you’re doing works for other people as well.
Thanks for sharing these great ideas. I save $150 a month by getting rid of my cable and using Sling TV, along with Netflix and Amazon.
Awesome! I’ve never heard of sling tv, I will have to check it out!
I have been considering getting rid of cable! It is so expensive and I rarely use it. Netflix is always my go to and Hulu adds anything from tv I would have wanted to watch anyway. Thanks for the tips!
Yes cable is crazy expensive! I always go to hulu for newer shows, and netflix for movies!