8 Easy Ways to Save Money

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If you’re new to the idea of frugal living and budgeting, let me introduce you to a few timeless, classic ways to save money every month that aren’t as ridiculous as reusing toilet paper. ? Frugal living doesn’t have to mean suffering. Here are 8 easy ways to save money.

Easy Ways to Save Money

8 Easy Ways to Save Money

You may have heard these before, but are you ACTUALLY implementing them and saving real cash money? 😉 An ounce of action is worth a pound of ideas.  Knowing something in theory is not the same as putting it into regular practice.

1. Use coupons if it’s convenient, buy only when things are on sale, and get the store brand. It’s usually just as good.

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2. Use public transportation, walking, or Uber or Lyft instead of having a car.  Try my codes for a free first ride up to $20:

Uber: katieh2082
Lyft: KATIE990497

Related: How to Survive without a Car (and Save Money!)

3. For your daily coffee fix, grab some tasty flavored ground coffee (I love the flavors at Target) and coffee creamer and make unlimited coffee at home for cheap! I like this one cup coffee maker so I don’t waste any unused coffee. If you usually go to Starbucks everyday, that’s an extra $150 a month that you save.

See Also: How to Make Fancy Coffee Drinks at Home for Cheap

4. Sign up for store loyalty rewards programs and scan your little key ring card whenever you shop to save without any effort.

P.S. You can save money by getting cash back for free on things you buy through Ebates!

5. Whenever you’re home, turn off lights if you’re not in a room, taker shorter showers, unplug appliances you aren’t using, and use blankets and sweaters instead of turning on the heat, and regular fans instead of AC. If you’re not home, turn off all the fans / AC / electronics / lights, etc.

6. Consider living in a tiny apartment or getting a few roommates to keep your housing costs low.

Related: How I Happily Lived in a 150 Square Foot Micro Studio

7. Cut out cable and watch Netflix or Amazon Prime video instead. There’s $100 extra you save every month. Even better, spend the time that you used to spend watching TV shows or movies on working on a side hustle to make extra money instead. Boom.

Related Post: Frugal Alternatives to Cable to Save Money

8. Make your meals at home instead of eating out or getting takeout or delivery. If you don’t want to spend time cooking, make sandwiches or pasta in a pasta boat in your microwave (no, I’m serious) or grab some frozen meals. Restaurants like PF Chang’s even make frozen bags of their entrees and appetizers that let you eat your favorite meals from restaurants at a fraction of the price.

And speaking of saving money on food and meal-related items, here’s a way to save money on plastic bags.

Save money on plastic bags with reusable containers

Plastic bags are one of those disposable items that isn’t super eco-friendly, so I wanted to figure out a way to avoid using them when possible. I actually reuse plastic bags if they were filled with something like office supplies or toiletries and that’s one way to recycle them.  Here’s how to save money on plastic bags.

An easy way to save money and be eco friendly is to use reusable plastic containers (like Tupperware and similar) for storing and transporting food.

I didn’t really want to buy plastic sandwich bags, somewhat because they seem wasteful and take up some in landfills and also because you have to keep buying them when you use them up, so instead I purchased a small sandwich-sized plastic container that I now use to make my sandwich in (microwave and dishwasher safe) and carry it to work in my bag. The container is the perfect size for a sandwich and it cushions it nicely.  Just wash it out after each use.

Also, my sandwiches were getting smushed in my bag before so now it’s in a sturdy container and no more smushed sandwiches! Yay! And I get to save the environment. ?

I would definitely recommend getting a sandwich container (that’s the exact one I use!) and even some of these reusable plastic bags to use instead of plastic sandwich bags. It saves you money in the long term and it prevents extra trash from ending up in the landfill. Win-win-win all around.

Back when I was working in a co-working space downtown (I now just work from home… no pants required), I used to take my lunch everyday so I wouldn’t have to pay the $15 downtown lunch prices. It saved me a ton of money over the 6 months or so that I was working out of there!  Here’s the weirdest thing I bring to work to save money.

The weirdest thing I bring to work to save money

The Weirdest Thing I Bring to Work to Save Money

But that’s not the weird part. ? The weird part was what I used to bring.

Sure, there were normal things like packets of ramen and sandwiches, but the weirdest thing I brought to work to save money were frozen tamales from Trader Joe’s!

Beef tamales and purse

Yes, frozen beef tamales. Because they had meat in them, I didn’t want to cook them and then travel with them because that seemed a little questionable to leave them sitting out in my bag in the summer heat. However, since my bus commute was only maybe thirty minutes or so, the tamales stayed frozen. I’m not exactly sure of the food safety of this one, but my food always stayed frozen by the time I got to work and I was always fine. ?

[See Also: 8 Easy Ways to Save Money and Free Budgeting Printables]

It sounds weird, but they made a really great lunch! I just microwaved them for a couple minutes and they were ready to eat. It says you’re supposed to steam them and get all fancy, but in my I-don’t-cook-anything opinion, most things can be put into the microwave and coaxed into heating up. ?

See Also: The Lazy Girl’s Guide to Budgeting and Accounting

If you’d like more tips on budgeting and saving money, you’ll love our ebook Budget Transformation.

Easy Ways to Save Money
Easy Money-Saving Hacks

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