Best Money Saving Tips: 12 moves that will save $30,000 (2024)

What are the best money saving tips?

While you can focus on saving a coffee or takeout meal here and there, it might take you a long time to reach that end savings goal.

Especially if it’s a big financial goal like going on a vacation, buying a home, or getting out of debt!

What strategies are the most effective for saving money?

What’s going to save you the most money in a year for your time?

Even if you have a low income?

Or a tight budget?

Here are the best money saving tips for your future. The top 12 ways you can save money for maximum immediate and long-term savings.

I’ve personally used these. I’ve easily saved over $30,000/year with these methods.

The savings only grow every year as I learn from experience and refine my approach.

This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you make a purchase, I may earn a small commission, at no cost to you. Please read thedisclosurefor more information.

12 Money Saving Tips

1. Optimize your money mindset

This is the most powerful strategy you can do!

To focus on savings, you need to shift your mindset about spending.

The best way to do this is through a No spend challenge where you don’t spend money over a certain period of time.

No spend challenge?

I know it sounds crazy! Painful! Why would you put yourself through this kind of discomfort?

Personally, I heard about the no spend challenge years ago.

I was interested, but kept putting it off because of Christmas or I was feeling exhausted and needed a treat… Any excuse you could think of – that was the excuse of the hour.

Until I went on maternity leave…

Our household income got cut in half…

And I HAD NO CHOICE but to do a no spend challenge.

Surprisingly, it’s not as difficult as you might think.

I learned:

• I don’t need to spend money to eat well. Have fun. Get that occasional self-care I crave.
• I’m more handy than I think. I can fix that leaky bathtub faucet myself. I don’t need to hire a plumber.
• I have a lot of stuff with a lot of life left! It can also be repurposed! For example, if you have a plate or bowl that doesn’t match, you can put it under a planter that leaks water.

Here is my complete guide on the no spend challenge including:

• How you can get started
• What rules you should set
• How to successfully complete it
• What you should do at the end

2. Lower your overall debt interest rate

Ideally, you want to get rid of debt altogether, but in the meantime, lowering your debt interest rate is a must!

The first thing you should do is list out all of your outstanding debts and associated interest rates. This might include:

• Student loans
• Car loans
• Credit cards

Once you compare your interest rates, you can see how debt can be moved around to lower the overall interest you’re paying. Credit cards generally have the highest interest rates of 20-30% so you want to move away from these!

Work on transferring higher interest debt to lower interest debt, which might be:

1. Another credit card with an initial promotional period (usually 6 months) of 0% interest: It sounds crazy to transfer to a credit card. If you know you’ll be able to pay off the balance by the end of the promotional period, this might be a great option. It’s important to read the fine print. Understand if there are any hidden fees.

2. An unsecured line of credit: The difference between an unsecured and secured line of credit is that the secured line of credit is backed by an asset like a home or a car. If you don’t make payments, the bank can go after your asset. Unsecured lines of credit usually can have a higher interest rate of around 5%* vs. a secured line of credit.

3. A secured line of credit (e.g. a home equity line of credit (HELOC)): Secured lines of credit can have an interest rate of around 4.5%*.

4. Mortgage: Mortgages can have an interest rate of around 3.5%*. The disadvantage of going with a mortgage is that you often can’t pay off the outstanding loan until after a set period of time (e.g. 5 years).

*The interest rate will depend on the person’s credit history and situation.

3. Learn from personal finance experts

Many people can probably EVENTUALLY achieve their financial goals.

The FASTEST way is through applying best practices.

Learn from the personal finance experts who have already reached the goals you strive for. Read about their experiences. Challenges. Solutions.

You don’t want to waste time making their mistakes. You don’t want to miss opportunities.

Even just 1 personal finance book can change your life.

Imagine if you read 2 or more this month.

When I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, I learned how to use the appreciated value in my home to buy a rental property.

Now I earn regular rental income. This income stream has been crucial during my maternity leave when our household income was cut drastically.

Here are personal finance books I’ve enjoyed:

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by Thomas J. Stanley

Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need by Grant Sabatier

Retire Early with Real Estate by Chad Carson

Million Dollar Habits: Proven Power Practices to Double and Triple your Income by Brian Tracy

I’ve heard they’re excellent. I can’t wait to dive in!

Let me know in the comments below if you’ve already read these and what you think.

4. Focus on trimming your highest costs

Housing and transportation are usually the top costs.

There are many ways to lower housing and transportation costs. Many of the below strategies we’ve done ourselves.

Strategies to save on housing costs:

• Move in with your family
• Move to a smaller home
• Move to a cheaper city
• Rent
• Rent with a roommate
• Rent out part of your home
• Pay off your mortgage

Strategies to save on transportation costs:

• Take public transportation
• Carpool
• Walk or bike
• Don’t speed
• Maintain your car

Some of these methods might seem extreme. Keep in mind that you’re not going to live this way for the rest of your life. These are short-term sacrifices for the long-term gains.

If we hadn’t focused on lowering our housing and transportation costs for 3 years, it would have easily taken us 10 years longer to buy our dream house. While it’s important to lower your costs as a whole, you’ll make huge progress towards your goals by focusing on your largest expenses.

5. Limit your non-essentials

I’m not just talking about the smoking, gambling, and alcohol.

Non-essentials can include:

• Clothing
• Yoga classes
• Books
• Movies
• Coffee/Tea
• Take out meals

There are a lot of non-essentials that can FEEL like essentials.

For every non-essential purchase, you need to ask yourself:

Do I really need this item?

What am I getting from this item that I don’t ALREADY HAVE?

It’s nice to treat yourself every now and then.

Sometimes you get caught up in the latest trend.

You feel like you need to have the newest iPhone. Or buy the sweater you saw an actor wear in a magazine.

You forget that your cell phone is working perfectly and you have a closet full of sweaters.

Or there are ways to get non-essentials for FREE or cheap!

Sometimes you just need to ignore the advertising. Ignore the fact that your family and friends have these products.

You can also use the 30 day rule.

What is the 30 day rule?When you think you need an item, wait 30 days. If you still feel like you need it after 30 days, then you can consider getting it.

Here are 2 other important questions.

1. What’s the OPPORTUNITY COST of buying this item?

Opportunity cost is what you’re MISSING OUT ON if you make this purchase.

For example, say you’re eyeing a $100 coat. The opportunity cost of that $100 is:

• Over $60 extra in 10 years if you put it in a savings account that pays 5% annual interest. (Imagine if you put more than just $100.)
• $100 you could have put towards your big financial goal like buying a house
• 2 different coats that costs $50 each (if you shopped around or waited until there’s a sale
• Something else you need that costs $100 like groceries!

2. How much of your TIME are you trading for your money?

What is each hour of your life worth? Say you make $35/hour and you spend $35 on a meal. Then you’re trading 1 hour of work for that meal.

Would you work 1 hour for that 1 meal?

Is the meal so worth it that you’d work an extra hour of the day to eat it?

I learned about this insight in the book Your Money or Your Life, which is about the 9 steps to financial freedom. This book is life changing. I highly recommend it. You can read my full review of the book here.

Say you decide to eat 5 $35 meals a week, that’s $175. That’s 1 month of groceries for me!

If you feel like you really need this item, here are some tips to keep your costs down:

• Buy it used through thrift stores, yard sales or online marketplaces (e.g. Craigslist, Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace,eBayandVarageSale)
• Buy a product that’s basic and doesn’t have all of the gadgets. More things can go wrong with it the more features it has.
• Use something you own that can be repurposed or fixed to fit this need
• If this is a gift, consider giving something you own that can be regifted or used to make a gift
• Think about what happened to your current product. Was it not well maintained? Is there anything you could have done along the way to prolong its life span?
• Buy for quality and not for quantity. For example, it’s better to buy a pair of jeans that’s high quality (and possibly more expensive) that’ll last you 20 years than one that’s low quality (and cheap) that you’ll have to replace in 1 or 2 years.

Non-essential purchases can add up fast!

Thinking about what you’re giving up and what you can now do for purchases puts things into perspective.

Related: Here’s an article on how to resist buying things (when you feel like you can’t stop).

6. Keep track of your cash flow

You need to lay out:

• What income is coming in
• What expenses are going out – line by line
• Categorize your expenses (e.g. groceries, take-out, utilities etc.)
• Sum up your categories

You can do it over the last month. Use your credit card and bank statements. Download the data and paste it into Excel.

Laying out all of the transactions can be overwhelming.

Take your time. Do it over a period of a few days if you need to.

This is an important step especially if you’ve never done it before!

You have to get that financial reality check!

Track your cash flow so that you know what your current savings rate (income – expenses) is.

That way you’ll have a baseline. You can set a realistic savings rate goal to work towards!

When you can see all of the numbers especially over a period of time, you can see how much money goes towards each category. You can evaluate purchases. Look for ways to cut costs.

You don’t have to do this exercise every month.

I find it enlightening to do it a few times a year so I can see the big picture.

Understand how my savings rate has changed. See if I need to focus on lowering specific expense categories.

If you’re looking for a budget template:

✅ Here’s the budget spreadsheet I use today! It has 3 different calculators to track your early retirement progress!

✅ Click here to use a 15% off coupon towards your purchase.

Related Articles:

• How to Start an Easy Budget
• A Review of the Best Budget Planner Books

7. Negotiate contracts for regular expenses

You might think that because a company advertises a rate – that this rate is not negotiable.

There are many contracts that are negotiable.

Here are a few:

• Cell phone
• Internet
• Home insurance
• Car insurance

These are ongoing expenses. Cutting these costs will impact your bottom line!

Here are best practices I’ve used to successfully negotiate contracts:

• Negotiate 2 months before your contract ends
• Speak with the customer loyalty/retention department (you need to speak to the people who are authorized to give you better rates)
• Check your current provider’s promotions
• Mention the competitor’s rates (make sure you’re noting competitors that actually apply to your area (e.g. you can get decent cell phone coverage in your area) and consider any initial sign up fees)
• Check with your employer or membership association for group discounts

Even armed with these practices, some people hate negotiating.

I used to cringe at the idea of negotiating. Then I took a negotiation class in my MBA. It was the best class I took in the program!

Negotiation is a life skill! It’s not just for lawyers and mediators.

If you are uncomfortable with negotiating, learn from a negotiation book.

Getting to Yes is an international bestselling book about how to negotiate.

It’s based on the work from the Harvard Negotiation Project. It can be applied to every type of negotiation.

8. Meal plan strategically

The idea is simple. Plan your meals for the week or a few days. Prepare the ingredients and make the meals in one day.

But meal planning is far from simple! I’m a few years into it and I’m still learning new best practices.

If you’re new to meal planning, get help from the experts.

If you do meal planning incorrectly, you could easily spend MORE money meal planning than you would eating out!

The $5 meal plan is a great way to ease yourself into meal planning. For only $5 per month, you get a month’s worth of meal plans INCLUDING grocery lists.

It saves you so much time! The meals cost around $2 per person!

They offer a 14 day FREE trial which includes approximately 40 recipes (regular or gluten-free – it’s your choice).

If you feel the plan is not right for you, you can cancel at any time. No questions asked!

If you’re an experienced meal planner, here are meal planning tips I use:

• Write it down! This is a simple thing that I used to not do. Once I started writing everything down, it made a huge difference in time and money savings! You could easily see what could be pre-chopped or batch cooked in advance e.g. if I’m having rice for 3 meals, I could prepare 6 cups of rice on Sunday to have throughout the week.
• Discuss meal planning with your family and friends. Trade recipes. It’ll make it fun and help hold you accountable.
• Include vegetarian meals as they’re often cheaper
• Keep meals for the week simple: 2 types of breakfasts, 6 types of dinners (lunch is leftovers), 2 types of snacks, the remaining meals are leftovers.
• The meals should use similar ingredients to reduce waste e.g. quinoa bowl for breakfast and quinoa in your taco for dinner
• Each meal should have only a few ingredients e.g.
  • overnight oats with blueberries and coconut for breakfast
  • a quesadilla with chickpeas, cheese and corn with a side of salsa for dinner/lunch the next day
  • apples and cucumbers for snacks throughout the day

✅ I also use a meal planner on paper. It has templates for weekly menus, grocery shopping lists, inventory lists, a recipe card and a price tracker.

It’s a printable so it’s an instant download that you can print as many times as you want. Click here to use a 15% off coupon towards your purchase.

Here are grocery shopping tips I use to keep costs down:

• Buy what’s significantly on sale (I look for the 50% off stickers for foods that have to be eaten that day) and then freeze it for later (for fruits and vegetables, I usually just refrigerate it.). You can then use it for a meal plan the following week.
• Buy in bulk. When I don’t see 50% off sticker sales, I often buy in bulk, especially meat. You can repack all of your meat in ziplock bags and freeze them so you only use what you need.
• Shop around until you know what’s generally cheaper at different grocery stores. You don’t have to go to 3 grocery stores in 1 day. You can visit a different grocery store each week. Over time, you’ll understand what the regular and sales price points are for the foods you regularly purchase at each grocery store. Always check the unit price as a yellow sales tag doesn’t always mean it’s a good price point. This is handy to know if you can’t buy 50% off or in bulk. If the sale supply runs out, you can also get a rain check.
• Use a grocery store coupon app like Checkout51 (U.S. and Canada) to get cash back on your grocery receipt

Here are tips to keep grocery costs down if you’re often tempted to buy more:

• Buy groceries only once per week. Every time you go to the grocery store, you are tempted to buy something you might not need.
• Never shop at the grocery store when hungry
• Shop with a list so you don’t buy more than what you need (Always check your pantry and fridge before you make that list.)
• Shop by yourself and leave the kids at home
• Use the free grocery pick up service, which also forces you to meal plan
• Buy online so you have less impulse purchases

Related: How to Save Money on Groceries

Related: Cheapest Food to Buy When You’re On A Budget

9. Involve your family or close friends

You are only 1 person. There’s only so many resources you have access to. Your family and close friends have access to other resources. They have knowledge and skills you don’t have.

You’re stronger as a team than you are as an individual.

Ask for help if you need it. This could be for a loan. Help with fixing an appliance. Maybe their best tips on how they save money.

You just never know what the answer is unless you ask.

It doesn’t make you weak to ask. It makes you resourceful.

You might be one of those people who hates asking for help. I get it! I used to be one of those people.

You have to realize that the people who don’t ask for help – they get left behind. They lose out on the opportunity. They might achieve their goals, but they’ll get there so much slower.

Here’s an example of someone who asked and got rewarded.

A friend of my brother’s just completed his MBA. He had a huge student loan he needed to pay off. My mom helped loan him the money through a mortgage because it was a cheaper rate than his student loan interest rate.

Now he’s saving easily thousands in interest! He helps her with minor projects around the apartment every now and then. It’s a win-win scenario.

Of course, this set-up involves a lot of trust. You wouldn’t do this with people you don’t know very well.

10. Meet with your partner or spouse regularly about finances

If you have a partner or spouse, meeting regularly about your finances helps you be on the same page on where your money was spent and where it’s going. You can be more intentional with your money decisions and focused on your financial goals.

Like the point above, if you’re working on your household finances by yourself, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

Every family has their system.

Some families like keeping everything separate. They split all the bills down the middle. For example, one person pays the mortgage while the other person pays all other expenses like food and utilities.

Some families have all of their finances joined.

Regardless of your system, working together on the household finances will help with:

• managing your everyday finances (ensuring bills don’t get missed!)
• mostly importantly, identifying opportunities for savings as well as investing!

For example, there could be extra cash that can be moved into another account that’s generating a greater rate of return.

With all the numbers on the table, you can find money that can be put together to take advantage of investing opportunities. That way your collective money is always working to generate the best return.

I know some people don’t want to share their financial situations.

A few reasons could be:

• one partner makes significantly more than the other
• one partner doesn’t think he or she is skilled in managing finances

Even if one partner makes significantly more, financial contributions are only one type of contribution. Non-financial contributions like managing household responsibilities or taking care of the children are arguably just as valuable as financial contributions.

At the end of the day, 2 heads are better than 1.

You don’t have to be a financial management specialist to see opportunities.

Anybody can look at how much you’re spending on groceries, look through the receipts, and assess where you can cut costs.

11. Set up automatic savings

You’ve probably heard the term “Pay yourself first”.

The concept has been recommended by personal finance experts for years. The idea is to think of yourself as a bill you need to pay each month. Before you pay your credit card and other bills, you pay yourself first and put money in your savings account. You have no choice but to save money.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t pay your bills. You should absolutely pay your bills on time.

This just means that you’re prioritizing savings. You’re ensuring that you’re actually saving and not spending all of your money on fun things.

What if you don’t have any money left (after paying bills) to pay yourself?

You have to make more money or lower your costs.

The habit of paying yourself first forces you to change other aspects of your life (outside of your savings bill). It forces you to be creative. To analyze your finances. To look for other ways to make money. That’s the magic of the concept.

How do you pay yourself first?

The easiest way to pay yourself first is to set up an automatic debit from your checking account. If you have an RRSP matching program with your company, you could also set this up.

If you’ve never done this before, you could start small like $20/month. You could always increase the amount as you become more comfortable.

12. Have more than 1 income stream

You can only alter so much on the expenses side:

The amount you can save = limited to the difference between your earnings and your costs.

The amount you can earn = unlimited

To increase your savings rate, you need to increase your income.

While it would be ideal to have a higher salary, sometimes it’s easier to add a side income.

Here are some additional income streams we’ve added:

• Part-time job income
• Dividend income
• Interest income
• Rental income
• Money from selling our possessions

Part-time job Income

There are a lot of part-time jobs you can do. I’ve had friends that work part-time as a Waitress or a Bartender on the weekends.

If you’re a mom or someone who needs flexible hours or a work-from-home job, you can become aPinterest Manager (managing a blogger or a company’s Pinterest account) or a Proofreader (proofreading ebooks which just involves a tablet!).

Here’s a list of other work-from-home side jobs that are lucrative:

• SEO Writer – earn more than $20,000/month
• Virtual Assistant – make $100/hour
• Transcriptionist – earn more than $100,000/year
• Scopist – earn $4000/month

The best part-time jobs are the ones you see as hobbies! The ones you would do regardless of if you made money from it.

The hobby I’m loving right now is blogging.

I’ve been surprised to see that it’s actually making money! This is how I got my first affiliate sale in my 3rd month blogging.

Dividend Income

Dividend income is when a company gives you money for owning a share on a monthly or quarterly basis.

If you’re new to the stock market or generally interested in investment options, The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need gives you a broad overview of different investment options and who they’re suitable for.

Interest Income

Interest income is when you get paid the interest rate for loaning out funds. This is a great way to diversify from the stock market.

2 marketplaces that connect investors with borrowers for loans are Lending Club (only in U.S.) and Lending Loop(only in Canada).

Real Estate Income

There are a lot of ways to make money from the real estate market.

You can rent out a property or part of a property or purchase REITS.

Rich Dad Poor Dad was what actually influenced us to make a move into real estate investing.

Here’s a brief summary of the lessons in Rich Dad Poor Dad.

I highly recommend checking this book out! Even if you’re not interested in making money through real estate, it has some great insights on how to have a rich mindset!

Money from selling our possessions

I love this income stream because it accomplishes 2 goals:

• Gets rid of clutter in the house
• Makes a hundred dollars or more each month

While you can host a yard sale, I find it’s more lucrative to sell things online using apps like Craigslist, Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace,andVarageSale. Related: Here’s a post with a list of apps to sell your stuff online.

I highly recommend doing research on your collectors and vintage items. People collect all types of things.

My mother in law is a tin collector and has bought an old tin for $20. My husband collects bobbleheads often for $20-50 each. Both of these items were initially free with the actual purchase.

Related Making Extra Money Articles:

• 11 Flexible Work-at-Home Jobs for Stay-at-Home Moms
• 11 Easy Ways to Make $100 Quickly

Other Tips for Saving Money

Looking for other ideas to save money?

Here are some of my favorite money saving resources:

1. Rakuten

Rakuten (formerly Ebates) is great because you can get up to 40% back for shopping online at over 2500 stores – many of which you would normally shop at like Amazon, eBay, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Walmart etc. It’s FREE to sign up.

For U.S. residents, Rakuten will give you a welcome bonus of $10after making your first online purchase of $25 or more. ForCanadians, it’s a$5 welcome bonus for signing up. You canread more about how to use Rakuten here!

2. Amazon Prime

This membership has 2 great benefits: free 2 day shipping and free access to movies, TV shows, music and books. You no longer have to worry about last minute items. You can cancel your other movie, music and book subscription services. You can also get 20% off diapers and baby food when you have more than 5 subscriptions.

Get the Amazon 30 day FREE trial here. You can cancel at anytime. No questions asked.

3. Honey

Honey is an application that looks at the items in your cart and helps you search for coupon codes.If it finds relevant codes, it enters them automatically!You never have to search for coupon codes online again!

It also has other money saving features like cash back, price drop notifications, and a price history.It’s also FREE to use.

Sign up for Honey here!

Recap of the best money saving tips:

1. Optimize your money mindset
2. Lower your overall debt interest rate
3. Learn from personal finance experts
4. Focus on trimming your highest costs
5. Limit your non-essentials
6. Keep track of your cash flow
7. Negotiate contracts for regular expenses
8. Meal plan strategically
9. Involve your family or close friends
10. Meet with your partner or spouse regularly about finances
11. Set up automatic savings
12. Have more than 1 income stream

Final Thoughts on the Best Money Saving Tips

Like everything, saving money is a habit and skill you develop over time. Start with implementing 1 savings tip you can realistically see yourself doing and go from there.

Have you done some of these savings tips?

What tips would you recommend? Comment below!

Related Money Saving Tips Articles:

• 18 Things I stopped buying which saved me $1000’s
• 11 Simple ways to decrease your grocery bill by 50%!
• 60+ Easy ways to reduce your electricity costs
• How to plan a wedding on a small budget
• How to save money on an engagement ring
• Honey coupon extension review: How to never miss a coupon code again!
• Host a swap party and shop for FREE
• Get FREE Starbucks Drinks using these 9 Clever Hacks
• 18 Interesting Saving Money Challenges for Every Budget
• 49 Freebies for your Birthday
• Minimalist Wardrobe: How to Save Money on Clothing Every Day
• Budgeting 101: How to Start a Budget
• EyeBuyDirect Review: How to Buy Cheap Glasses Online
• How to Save Money Buying Clothes
• Top Frugal Living Tips
• Best Things To Spend Your Money On

Enjoyed this post?

It would be great if you could share itand follow me onPinterestandFacebook.

What are your money saving tips?