9 Ways to Save Money

Do you live paycheck to paycheck? Do you find it difficult to save money in your everyday life? With these nine tips, you could find that you have a whole lot of money to save or spend on other things.

1. Spend Less on Cosmetics

You look gorgeous already. Don’t listen to those cosmetic commercials. Embrace that beauty that’s uniquely you. The average American woman spends around $300,000 on cosmetics, totaling over $3000 a month, or around $11 a day. If you can shave off just $1 a day off that price tag, you will save yourself over $350 a year. After 10 years, you will have saved over $3650. If you completely stopped using makeup, after 15 years you could have enough money to buy a Porsche. You don’t need to stop spending completely, though, in order to save money.

Instead of going out and getting your nails done, try doing your own nails. That can save you a lot of money when you add it up over time. Plus, who doesn’t like having a nail painting party? You can also save money on clothing. Shop for vintage clothing or clothing on consignment instead of buying retail. Or, when you get tired of a garment, have a clothing swap party with your friends to trade clothes.

2. Save Money on Groceries and Food

OK, so we all have to eat. But your food budget doesn’t have to break the bank. Food and groceries cost the average American almost $8,000 a year, but there are ways to cut back.

• Buy generic brand condiments
• Shop with a list (prevents you from buying unnecessary snacks and goodies)
• Buy in bulk (but don’t let it go to waste) when you can
• Get a membership for a bulk buying store (such as Sam’s Club or Costco)
• Reduce the amount of candy/sweets you eat (makes up around $400 of the average annual budget (doesn’t include cake and non-sweet snacks)).
• Cut back on those spendy coffee drinks

Try eating out less, as well. Eating out costs around 44% of the average annual food budget ($3365) although it makes up less than 20% of actual number of meals eaten. That is well over twice the price of just eating at home. If you can reduce the number of times you eat out by one time every other week, you have just saved yourself 26 times of going out and eating (and likely over $500 a year).

3. Electricity Bills

Your Dad was right. Turn off those lights. Electricity costs the average American $1200 a year. You can reduce that price quite a bit by taking these easy steps:

• Unplugging chargers when they aren’t in use (AC adapters use electricity, whether or not your electronic device is plugged in)
• Turning off the TV when you aren’t watching something
• Replacing your light bulbs with LEDs (last longer, and use less electricity)
• Turning off the lights when you leave a room
• Only turning on the AC when you need to
• Use more natural light

These help the average American save over $30 a month on electricity. That adds up to around $360 a year (reducing your electricity by over 25%).

4. Saving on Water

Ah, a hot shower. Saving money on water is in some ways the easiest, yet also the hardest, thing to save on. You can easily save on water by turning off the water while brushing your teeth, taking fewer showers or shorter showers. You can also take showers that are not as hot (a particularly good idea if you’re prone to eczema). And you can invest in a water-saving shower head.

The easiest way to reduce the cost is to not take baths in a bathtub. Baths are notorious for increasing the cost of water bills dramatically. Switching to a shower can save you an easy 15 gallons a day. Making that shower a military shower can save you an additional 10 gallons. Reducing the amount of time you spend brushing your teeth (meaning leaving the water on) can reduce the amount spent by an additional 5. All in all you just reduced your water by 30 gallons daily, or around 900 gallons a month. That reduced your bill by around $10 per month, which may not seem like a lot, but that’s $120 per year!

5. Transportation

Try biking or walking places, instead of driving there. This will save on gas and wear-and-tear on your car. Cut back on travel costs by traveling with friends and family, and staying with them.

6. Saving Money on Entertainment

Entertainment costs the average American around $2,500 a year. You can save more money by simply renting movies instead of buying them and getting more out of your subscription services (and switching to subscriptions instead of cable). You can also cut the amount of time you go out of the house. Or, you can even try watching YouTube instead of cable. Try watching TV and movies at home, rather than at the movie theater.

For your physical entertainment you can try checking books out from libraries rather than buying them outright. You should also cut magazine subscriptions, and see which subscriptions you can get for free online.

7. Home Furnishings

Make your own art and home furnishings – there’s no need to buy what you can make! Try upcycling furniture from local thrift stores or other places. Add a layer of paint and reupholster it and no one will know the difference! You might also want to try living a more minimalist (or modern) life style, by not decorating your house at all.

8. Don’t Drink Alcohol (or Spend Less)

Alcohol can add to your waistline but it sure does subtract from your bank account. The average household spends $434 on alcohol. That average includes the 35% of Americans that don’t drink. When you take out those people, you have that the average drinking household spends almost $700 per year on alcohol. Over the course of around 40 years that will add up to around $28,000. Had that same amount of money been invested each year (assuming 5% growth), it would be worth $84,559.81, and that’s assuming you’re average. But the expense doesn’t stop there. Drinking alcohol also causes you to have to spend more on medical bills and traffic tickets (on average) than the non-drinking members of the American population.

9. Quit Smoking

If you’ve ever bought a pack of cigarettes, you know they can set you back a pretty penny. Tobacco products cost the average household $337 (including those that don’t smoke) per year. An estimated 14% of Americans are smokers, spending more than $3,000 a year on tobacco products alone. Smoking also causes more than $170,000,000,000 to be spent on medical bills each year in America. That adds an additional $5,000 price tag on those cigarettes, each year, not even mentioning the increased price of insurances (and the fact that the average smoker makes $3,000 less than the average non-smoker).

If you smoke, smoking could cost you around $400,000 in your life time. Had that money been invested (assuming 5% growth) you could have made well over $1,000,000 off of it, or at least kept an additional $10,000 a year throughout your life. The reduced price of quitting smoking won’t be completely effective immediately (insurance rates will take longer to drop, as will medical bills).

I hope these ideas help! If you liked this article, be sure to check out more at planandorganize.com. We have articles on everything from meal-planning to binoculars for astronomy. If there’s something you want to plan and organize, we’ve got you covered!

 

For Additional Research:

https://www.thebalance.com/how-much-money-does-smoking-cost-you-4143324
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/resources/data/cigarette-smoking-in-united-states.html
https://vapingdaily.com/quit-smoking/cost-of-smoking/ (ignore vaping ads)
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2018/04/29/how-does-the-average-american-spend-their-paycheck.aspx
https://www.statista.com/statistics/715231/average-monthly-spend-on-beauty-products-us/
https://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-look-at-the-average-american-budget-and-how-the-average-american-can-start-saving-more/
https://www.allure.com/story/average-woman-spends-on-makeup
https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/how-much-does-the-average-american-family-really-spend-on-groceries.html/
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/01/01/heres-what-the-average-american-spends-on-restaura.aspx
https://budgeting.thenest.com/average-budget-dining-out-20972.html https://www.reference.com/food/much-money-spent-alcohol-yearly-c44c2d1ba1a0c9cb