If you’re looking for some best methods of saving money, then you’ll love this article.
Last year I moved on my own for the very first time and I had to pay all my own bills and I had to learn how to really budget and save money. So I did all these tips last year and I really think it helped me save hundreds and probably thousands of dollars. So I’m just gonna get right into it.
1. Sell your items.
I’ve been using Poshmark for years. Poshmark is an app where you get to sell your clothes and you can also buy clothes, and you can like negotiate the price. I’ve done Thread Up in the past and I also do Bookbyte. So Bookbyte is where you can scan the barcodes of books and see if they are worth anything.
So for like three or four books I can usually get $15-20, which is really good, and they’ll send you the prepaid shipping label. And you just pack up the books and send it to them.
2. Use cash and try the cash envelope system.
The cash envelope system is where you take out a certain amount of money for the week and that’s all the money you’re gonna, that you can use.
For example, say I calculated it will I can spend $150 this week. That means my grocery money I have like say $50 for that and then the rest of the $100 will go towards my other living expenses. You know any like activities I want to do. That really helps you keep a budget and it also prevents you from just using your ATM card all the time.
3. Buy a water filter.
So this was like the best investment I made last year. I love my little water filter. I do not buy bottled water anymore. Like I used to love Fiji and I used to love Evian but it gets really expensive to always buy bottled water so now I just have a water bottle and I always fill it up with my filtered water.
4. Buy things after a scandal.
Remember Paula Deen a few years ago when she was going through her scandal? So all her pots and pans put her really good quality were all discounted at Target like, heavily discounted. So you know if a person’s going through something, an organization and like a company is severing ties with them, their discounting all their items. Just think about it.
SEE ALSO: How To Save Money On Everything: 18 Super Ways to Save Money
5. Get the a Acorns app.
This app automatically invests your spare change. It’s super cool. I’ve been doing it for the past like three months and so say you spend $4.50 on something. It will take, it will round up. Take 50 cents like to make it $5 and put it away. And it invests some of that money into the stock market. It’s a way for you to save and invest and I’ve made and I’ve been able to save/invest a couple hundred dollars and I haven’t even thought about it.
6. Know the weekly and daily deals in your area.
I like to get my nails done and at my nail salon you get a discount if you come before 1 p.m. It’s like their happy hour, and you also get a discount if you use cash. When I worked 9:00am to 5:00pm, I used to go during my lunch break to get the discount and now that I work overnight I just go first thing in the morning. And there’s so many deals and like your area, like happy hour deals and dinner deals.
Just knowing what deals are in your area, you can see the ton of money, but still you know live the life you want to live.
7. Meal prep.
This is super essential. Not only will you be organized save money, but you’ll also eat more healthy.
8. Go along with meal prepping,
I actually rarely bought meat last year. So meat is super expensive and I’m not preaching to go vegan or vegetarian. But once I started buying tofu, which was only like a $1.50-2.00, I saved so much money. And then I learned to just eat it like meat, like I’ll put it in my pasta, I’ll make a fake Chipotle bowl, I’ll put it in paninis.
It’s like I love tofu, and it saved me so much money eating tofu.
9. Match coupons to in-store deals.
I’m not an extreme couponer, but I do like to clip coupons on a weekly basis. You can do this really simply. Say you have a $1 manufacturer coupon from Maybelline. I would just go and see hey is CVS, Target, Walgreens are they having any discounts that week on Maybelline?
Say Target did and say they had $1 off a Maybelline and you had a $1 coupon, that’s $2 off. Simple things like that will save you a ton of money.
SEE ALSO: How To Eat Healthy On a Budget: 10 Hacks To Eat Well and Save Money
10. Buy items with a dual purpose.
Coconut oil for example. You can use that to cook, you can use that to wipe off your makeup, you can use that for your hair. I try to always think like when I go into a grocery store can I use this for more than one thing?
11. Save your spare change.
This is really simple to do but you’ll be really surprised how much it adds up, if you just keep a jug or a jar or you’re even a coin purse and just put your spare change in there like everyday.
12. Use every last drop of an item.
I will cut my toothpaste tube and use it. I’ll put water and dish soap. I will put some water and spaghetti sauce. I make things stretch and it really has helped me save money.
13. Recycle almost everything you can.
I have recycled gift bags that people have gotten me, tissue paper like I will never buy tissue paper because you know don’t throw that out, keep it folded up nicely and re-gift it to somebody else.
14. Buy things in bulk.
If you use something a lot, like I really like to give cards, and I will never really go to CVS and just like buy like an individual card. I’m going to get the packs from like Marshall’s and you can get like 12 of them for $3.99. Things like that, if you use things a lot, buy it in bulk.
15. Stop by name-brand items.
The generic version or the in-store version of the item is usually almost the exact same as a name-brand item. You’re going to save like $2.00-3.00 by doing this.
16. Organize a clothing swap with your co-workers or your friends.
We did this at my last job and it was like a really fun time. So you know the men and the women, we just brought in the clothes that were good quality but we no longer wanted. I got like a DVF dress. It was $300-400 that someone like just couldn’t fit.
So it’s a really good way to refresh your wardrobe for free.
17. If you love to read invest in Kindle unlimited and a library card.
What I love about Kindle unlimited is that it’s $10.00 a month, and I get a resource of all these free ebooks. I think I can get like ten books a month or something like that. At the library, you know I just get like the new releases of books and a lot of a lot of libraries have like digital subscriptions where you don’t even only have to go into the library anymore and check out a book.
Thank you for reading this article about best methods of saving money and I really hope that you take action my advice. I wish you good luck and I hope its contents have been a good help to you.
