We
live in a digital culture where it's so easy to swipe your credit cards
buy something online even pay your friends back using your phone that
we sometimes don't realize how much we are spending.
It
just looks like a random number and you're like okay click click click.
It's super easy so using cash instead of using your credit card will
help you realize how much you're spending and when you see it that
amount of money in cash it just seems like so much more money because of
the physical paper.
All
of your expenses on paper take time to look at your past transactions
and really keep track of how much you're spending, see where your
money's going, how much are you spending on food, how much are you
spending on Amazon or groceries.
It can
surprise you and this is your chance to bring awareness to this area so
that you can see where you can start to cut back from there.
You
can start to set new budgets for yourself and kind of make it like a
game. Like see if you could spend like $100 loss on food this month or
on whatever categories that you think you might be overspending in this
brings me to my next point.
You
just might be subscribed to something that you don't realize you're
subscribed to or something that you don't use anymore that you can
technically cancel or put on hold.
I
can't tell you how many times I've saved money using this trick. I
never check out without googling for a special promo code first because I
just know that there are so many promos and coupon codes out there.
So
for example there was this YouTube convention last year that was pretty
pricey so say the convention was like $400 to attend I was about to pay
that $400 to attend that event but instead as I'm home let me Google
this and see if there's any like coupon codes out there so I ended up
finding this guy who was speaking at that event and he turned out to
have like a special code for his followers.
So
I just took that code and putted it and my ticket came out to be half
the price so I saved $200 just by a quick google search tip.
You can actually get up to fifteen percent cashback when you shop online through Ebates.
If
you haven't heard of Ebates it's the largest cash back site which are
partners with over 2,500 of the biggest name brands like Sephora,
amazon, adidas, urban, outfitters even Coursera to bring you cashback
coupons and promo codes all for free.
I've
been using Ebates since 2015. I love that it rewards you for shopping at
places that you would normally already shop at so kind of a no-brainer
to use. It feels like free money so using Ebates is super easy.
I
personally like to use the Google Chrome extension so that whenever I'm
doing some online shopping then there will be a pop-up letting me know
if that shop has Ebates cashback. So there's just a button that says
activate cashback you click it and you're good to go.
An
emergency fund is a sum of money that is about three to six months
worth of your expenses. So calculate your average monthly expenses and
times that by three to six it just depends on whatever number makes you
feel good whatever number lets you sleep at night. That is your
emergency fund to dip into whenever there is an emergency.
So the way you start building this is to make a plan to start like setting deposits to that emergency fund so you can make this
automatic
or it doesn't have to be automatic start to consciously think of ways
to save that money and then actively transfer it to your emergency fund.
So
this is a way to limit your shopping habits. Instead of shopping
whenever you feel like it or whenever you're bored set like a schedule
for your shopping.
If
you don't like the previous tip on scheduling your shopping allowance
you can also apply this tip to wait it out. Give yourself 14 to 30 days
after you want to buy something to actually buy it.
So this also helps curb that shopping impulse.
I
kind of want to counteract the popular belief that shopping in bulk is a
way to save more money. Yes in some cases it is but I see a lot of
people kind of go overboard with it. People who like to save money like
to buy bulk everything.
Like let me buy like
20 paper towels or like all of this toilet paper or all of these hand
creams all of these bananas just because they're on sale and yes it
might be cheaper per piece.
But really think about what you're gonna use and what you really need.
When
I was growing up my mom would take us to the library every week and we
used to like check out books and I really enjoyed that experience and
when I grew older I kind of forgot that that public resource was
available to us. I forgot that I could get a library card and check out
books without having to buy them on Amazon or audible and that can
actually save a lot of money.
Books can get
expensive especially if you like reading so consider finding your local
library and see if you could get a library card
because
most libraries have all the books that you'd want to read and libraries
also have like DVDs movies audio books audio tapes. They got more than
you think.
This
was a tip I picked up from a friend recently and I just never thought
about it before. If you look at your local grocery store they always
have certain items on sale maybe you can find like the coupons that you
get in the mail and plan your meals around what's on sale.
So my friends invited me over for dinner.
This is a common tip but I think there are a lot of like used things that we don't typically realize is used.
For
example if you look on like Poshmark, there's a lot of makeup palettes
and things like that that aren't really used. They're just opened and
the people don't use them. So they resell them on Poshmark for a lot
cheaper.
Just
to put it super simply : cooking at home making your own food versus
buying your own food, making your own clothes if you're so talented at
sewing versus buying clothes, making whatever you think you can
personally.
Learn to cut or do your own hair so you can save a lot of money from going to the hair salon.
There
are so many YouTube videos teaching you how to cut your hair, how to
layer it evenly or if you're not comfortable with that you can always
ask a friend to help do it for you.
My
last tip for today is to whether you want to swap clothing, swap books,
swap I don't know a vacuum cleaning supplies. Whatever
you can swap, lend out, borrow do that with a friend so that you don't have to buy everything for yourself.
You can save so much money by sharing items that you don't normally use every single day.