Coming into money or being tight on money can change a person’s habits. But, no matter how much money or how little money you make, there are money saving habits that should never be neglected regardless of your income status. In this article, we’ll list a few that you can try implementing for yourself.
1. Recycling
Some may argue that recycling is not accessible or convenient to where they live, that it takes up too much time, or just plain forget to even recycle at all.
As the following article from Huffington Post mentions:
“Recycling is a behavior,” Brian Iacoviello, an assistant psychiatry professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City told The Huffington Post. “Much like exercising or eating healthily, people often engage in this behavior less than they ‘should.’”
Not only is recycling is a great way to help the the environment by reducing landfill and pollution, you are practicing a small act of kindness that over time and repetition, contributes to your positive identify of being a person who is not selfish and lazy. By recycling, you also learn the importance of not being wasteful. This mindset translates very well into how you should handle money.
Kudos to zero-wasters who prove that integrating recycling into their lives is possible. Although this lifestyle is not suitable or practical for everyone, zero-wasters are leading by example and proving that adding recycling habits to your life can be very beneficial.
If you prefer to recycle items yourself instead of relying on your weekly garbage pick up, you should save your plastic water bottles, aluminum soda cans, and beer bottles. You can then take what you’ve collected to a local recycling center and get a few hundred dollars back every year. Treat yourself to a nice dinner out with that extra cash!
2. Clipping coupons
Every time I watch those extreme couponers I am blown away at how much they save! And it’s even more savage when the register actually GIVES them money back in the end. It’s like they just robbed the store and then some.
You don’t need to go to extreme lengths like this; you can still save a lot of money by quickly browsing the coupons you receive every Sunday. I’ve often found great money saving opportunities for makeup, restaurants, groceries, and electronics in these!
If digging through weekly coupons is too old school for you (*cough* millennials *cough*), you can use your smartphone to look up deals when you’re already in the store. The GROUPON app is a great resource to find discounts from local businesses. Another is just visiting the store’s website for downloadable deals i.e. Michael’s, the arts and crafts store, almost ALWAYS has a coupon available which downloads to your smartphone on the spot. I also make a point to never buy Krispy Kreme without downloading a Groupon coupon which saves us nearly $14 bucks each time whenever we’re craving something sweet once in a while.
Why pay full price if you don’t have to. Money is hard enough to make as is so why not try to keep as much of it for yourself as possible.
3. Ask for discounts
Student, veterans, and senior discounts are the ones I see most often. Sometimes there are also discounts for being a local resident, or family/friend discount, referral discounts, and cash discounts.
Keep your student IDs, even after graduation! At museums the student discount can even be free admission sometimes. When we go to the movie theatre and or museums I use my student discount to save a few dollars. We’ve saved a lot of money this way.
Brand or story loyalty programs can offer great discount opportunities. But what if you don’t shop at certain stores often but want to still avail of the deals? If you have close friends that are already members of these loyalty programs, it doesn’t hurt to politely ask if you can go shopping with them and just Venmo them back for your purchases! We recently availed of this with a close friend who is a VIB Rouge member at Sephora. She helped us get a great deal on a skin care product we were eyeing for a long time. Shoutout to Ruth, thank you! 🙂
Do you have a wedding and another big event or party and have to spend hundreds or thousands on vendors, or have to pay roofing or plumbing contractors on renovation of your home? Many times these vendors can offer a cash discount if you ask to pay in cash. In my experience, this can be a 5-10% discount. You won’t know this until you politely ask. Muster up the courage to ask questions, you’ll never know what deals are possible.
4. Shopping Vintage
Shop Vintage aka secondhand. “Vintage” items sometimes get a bad rep from people. The thought of shopping at thrift stores like Goodwill are sometimes frowned upon and seen as a poor person’s activity. To these fine people I would gently say GET OVER YOUR DAMN SELF.
Macklemore perfectly described this type of mentality in his music video :
“..Fifty dollars for a t-shirt, that’s just some ignorant b**** s***
I call that getting swindled and pimped, s***
I call that getting tricked by a business, that shirt’s hella dough..”
There are a lot of great finds at thrift stores that are in awesome condition! Obviously use common sense and avoid personal items like underwear and sheets.. but items like suits, kitchenware, electronics, books, and many other items are just as good second hand as they are brand new.
In addition to the money saving aspect, thrift shopping has the excitement of a treasure hunt. And in my experience there have been countless times where I have found excellent, high quality items for a few cents or dollars.
For example, I was lucky enough to find a Le Creuset baking dish for $4 or $5. For brand new it’s $40-50 for this single baking dish! Brand name quality items for a fraction of the cost! If you’re worried about what others might think, really think about it… If you hosted a dinner party, no (sane) dinner guest is going to ask about each kitchenware item and if you got it new and how much you paid for it. If they do, they probably shouldn’t have been invited in the first place..
Another example of a great find was for a roof rack for the SUV for when we go snowboarding and skiing. Those hard top roof rack boxes can run $400+ on average. But I was able to find a Yakima Rocket box for only $75! It did the job well and saved us a few hundred dollars.
5. D-I-Y
There are instances when you must hire a professional to get something done, especially when it comes to safety and getting it done right the first time i.e. car fix or plumbing or an electrician who has the proper training and skills to fix or upgrade whatever.
However, there are many instances where doing it yourself can be a great money saving and learning opportunity.
Car Work
In college I inherited my Dad’s old 20-year-old Nissan 240Sx and I didn’t have hundreds of dollars to pay a mechanic to do the work for me. And this is when I learned to do some basic car maintenance i.e. how to change my own break pads and rotors, how to do an oil change, fluid maintenance and such. With the help and guidance of my Dad, and some Youtube tutorials, I was able to upgrade and fix my car for a fraction of the cost.
Executive Chef *Your Name Here*
Vince is the king of home cooked, restaurant quality steaks
D-I-Y also includes knowing how to cook a great steak at home. A steak dinner prepared by a chef from a fancy a steakhouse can cost you around $50 minimum/average per steak, not including drinks and appetizers. For the same price, you can whip up the same delicious meal at home and can feed you and several more people. Vince makes AMAZING steaks at home and learned everything from Gordon Ramsay on YouTube . With practice and adding his own twist each time, each dish gets better and better.
Home Beauty
$3 dollar mani, DIY
Another way I save a few hundred dollars every year is by D-I-Ying my own manicures. For me, spending $20-30 dollars on a manicure every 2 weeks is out of my budget and quickly adds up. Although, it is nice to be treated and pampered once in a while, I’ll only seek out a professional salon for special occasion events.
Learn to fish, don’t pay extra to the fisherman. Whenever possible, do-it-yourself.
