What money saving hacks do you believe actually makes a difference? There are so many small decisions we make daily the costs us and it's easy to fall into autopilot and forget what and where our expense actually go. How did you go about saving money which have worked for you over time and that you believe everyone can implement in their lives. I think that saving money is more being smart with small decisions over time. Please share 🙂
What's the easiest way you've found to save money without it feeling like a sacrifice?
byu/Organic-Signal-9646 inFrugal
Posted by Organic-Signal-9646
31 Comments
i spent time practicing cooking and i genuinely feel like i can create better meals for my family than most restaurants can.
not to mention healthier, and customized to our tastes.
this is especially true for things like burgers and fries which can run around $18 here easily.
Restaurants soak up a lot of cash these days.
Using the stuff I already own. When I properly looked through my belongings I realised I had pretty much everything I needed for the best part of a year, including art materials, books, clothes, make up, skin care, candles, hair care.
I used to think since I was a good saver that I didn’t need to listen to the “pay yourself first” advice. But I changed that, and now living on the remainder *after* savings has been the biggest win for me.
Take an inventory of the stuff you own or subscribe to and ask ‘Is this really necessary in my life’? Turn out many things can be removed and thus save you money.
The moment that I receive my income, I put a big amount to my savings account. It creates the feeling of having a thight budget. Nearing the end of the month I often have to put some money back to use, but it’s less than when I keep it on my checking account. I also opened several saving accounts with specific names as ‘car insurance’, ‘house’ etc. Seeing how these accounts are growing is very motivating. And then when the annual payment for my car insurance comes, I’ve saved up enough and it doesn’t harm what I’m saving for a house.Â
My banking app also has the option to round up every expense and at the end of the day that amount gets saved. So if I spend €9,45 it will put €0,55 on my savings account.Â
Also, started bringing lunch to work instead of buying a prepared lunch every day. Made a bigger difference than I’d thought.Â
Not exactly what you’re asking for, but when my career was just starting, I had a bunch of debt and almost no money coming in.
As I increased my wage, I kept living “poor” – diverting most of my raises towards debt payoff, with a small bump in “takehome.”
Once debt was paid off, all the money that *was* going to debt now went to 401(k) or IRA.
Once those were maxed, whenever a raise comes my way (which are minimal, I’ve stopped climbing any positions/promotions for quite a few years) I try to divert most of the raise to some kind of saving, either bigger buffer in cash or after tax investing, and only letting a small percentage hit my “spending” bank account.
I know that probably doesn’t help you, but avoiding (too much) lifestyle creep is how I saved money without it feeling like a sacrifice.
Cook all the food already in your freezer or pantry every other month or so. Saves you on that week for groceries.
Doing stuff myself such as cutting my own grass, shoveling my own snow, cooking at home instead of dining out or getting takeout, fixing broken things versus buying new, etc.. I was proud of myself for ordering a $9 replacement vacuum belt and installing it myself rather than spending $100+ on a new vacuum, for example.
Stopping lasyness, used to eat a lot of take away, specially lunch time, stop it saved around 200+ every month
There is a common tendency to emphasize % savings, rather than amount of savings. Saving 50% on a $20 item is worthwhile. Saving 0.x% on a car purchase is not enough to care about, even though it tremendously impacts financing more than the 50% savings on $20 item.
Some of my largest savings are least impactful. For example, I saved several thousand per year by talking with my company’s 401k plan head about ways to reduce the mandatory admin/advisor fees. My ROI for solar was under 4 years. Now that it has passed the ROI point, I save thousands per year with no sacrifice. Filling out my taxes this year, It looks like I made ~$40k in 2025 or so through bank and brokerage bonuses — just moving money around, some time and thought, but no significant sacrifice to me. I instead found this enjoyable.
I stopped buying paper towels and I air dry most laundry. It adds up over time
To answer the question in your title, I think it has to be a change in mindset. Habits are hard to break, and you really have to want to change what you do in order for it to not feel as much like a sacrifice IMO.
In response to your other question, not eating out has saved me sooooo much. And that includes snacks/coffee. I will occasionally eat at Costco because it’s horribly delicious junk food + not too expensive, but otherwise all food comes from home, including snacks. 🙂
I think making the change to homemade coffee and stopping Door Dash and services like that are both things people can do that are immensely helpful. Might not be easy to make the change at first, but it can be done.
Easy way to save money was to switch to prepaid cell phone service. I was paying $40-50 a month for my cellphone when I had T-Mobile or Verizon. Now it’s $240 a year with mint and my service is totally fine. Spending less but no change in my phone habits. I also have an iPhone SE. it isn’t as fancy as other phones but I’ve never had the newest and fanciest phone so it’s fancy to me.
I also switched insurance to save but that keeps creeping up. I might need to switch again.
I drink filtered Brita water instead of bottled. No change to my quality of life.
My default grocery store is Aldi so with or without sales, I’m spending on the lower end with groceries.
When my ford focus died after having a lot of issues, I got a Honda Civic and have had very few issues since then. When that got totaled, I got a Honda civic hybrid and save even more on gas.
I’m sure there’s more but if it doesn’t impact my lifestyle, I probably don’t notice it.
Cooking my own food. I save money, arguably time, and the food is better.
Keeping your place organized. There’s been so many times I’ve rebought things not realizing I had it because I couldn’t find it (this was mostly toiletries and related items). I needed tights recently and refused to buy more because I knew I had some in my drawer but just needed to reorganize. In the meantime I started wearing pants that I haven’t worn in ages. Now I have an organized drawer, a normal amount of tights that I didn’t have to rebuy, clothes I started wearing again, and clothes to donate because I found them during organizing and won’t ever wear them again.
Having it deducted pre-tax from my check at work. Create an IRA if you can.
1. Hang drying clothes
2. Husband has a company car that has to be electric so we went onto an EV energy tariff, electricity is 8p per KW between 12am-4am. In addition to charging the car at this time, I was setting the washer dryer to run but turns out it’s dangerous and if something did happen it invalidates the house insurance so I’ve gone back to hang drying a lot more
3. Changed all the light bulbs when we moved to LEDs
4. Anything we get rid of I try and sell first
5. Meal planning
6. Buying secondhand clothes and shopping in the sales for myself and the kids (not for everything but for most things) – husband not on board with secondhand for himself
Skip lunch with intermittent fasting
Maybe the easiest for me, and this is NOT for everyone as some are irresponsible with credit, was to replace my credit cards which yielded little in the way of rewards with credit cards that yield better rewards. I went from 1% cash back on purchases I was already making with credit cards to 3%+ cash back simply by swapping out credit cards.
Outside of signing up for the new credit cards no additional effort was involved. Since I spend, just on necessities, between $2,000 and $3,000 per month that represents an increase in savings of between $40 to $60 per month or $480 to $720 per year. That, to me, is a large amount of money.
Phone bills subscriptionsÂ
This is cliché, but stop buying coffee out. I bought a $40 frother to make a latte at home. $40 may be a lot to put out at once, but the return on investment could be a couple weeks depending on how many times you buy a coffee.
Meal planning is huge. And I always have to plan for leftovers. I don’t plan to cook a meal every night, because I know each night we’re going to end up with at least one serving of leftovers.
Don’t overstock your pantry and forget about things. Like somebody said above, every month or so do a complete reset and use up with in your pantry and your freezer before grocery shopping.
I read somewhere that somebody had suggested keeping one streaming subscription at a time, and switching every few months. There’s enough shows on each subscription to watch for a few months. Then cancel and switch to another one for a few months.
Eliminated impulse purchases
The rounding up method really helped me – literally everything I have to spend (including bills) I round up to the nearest £1, and save the difference. So for something that costs £20 exactly I’d save nothing, but something that costs £19.50 I’d save 50p.
Step one: look at the previous months expenses. Then identify the 10 least expensive purchases. Out of that list, the most expensive one becomes the minimum you have to spend at checkout. In theory(FOOD THEORY!!) You can identify what exactly is worth spending on and what is not worth buying.
Stop eating out and stop ordering takeout and coffee. Trim streaming services. Meal planning. At home or free activity date nights and social gatherings. Sharing one vehicle with live in partner (one of us is WHF). Thrifting clothes and buying larger items on FB marketplace. (Doing same to sell when getting rid of items). Home workouts/yoga. Research included discounts on warehouse club memberships. Getting haircuts, color, nails and massages at beauty schools. Clothes swaps with friends/family of similar size and age groups.
Realizing that I actually have everything I need, and don’t need to buy anything.
I give myself a small Fun Money budget per month, so I don’t feel restricted, but I don’t always use it,
I like to set little rules for myself that restrict my spending, but allow me to have the thing that I want sometimes.
For example, I made a rule that I don’t spend any money on sweets or junk food, but if someone offers me some or I get it free at work then I allow myself to have it. Good for the wallet and the waistband!
Or a common one I’ve seen other people do too… if I see something online I want to buy, I don’t allow myself to buy it immediately. I put it in the shopping cart and wait at least two weeks. Often I won’t have the desire or need by then. But if I still really want the thing after two weeks I’ll buy it.
I have a Ramadan inspired rule – spend no money on any vices or bad habits during daylight hours lol. Obviously during the month of Ramadan I try to abstain completely. But during the rest of the year I’ve found restricting the amount of time in each day I allow myself to spend drastically cuts down on overall spending.
Setup automatic bank transfers to a brokerage, retirement, or high yield savings account.
Gardening, canning, cooking and also involving my family. These become bonding activities rather than going to the mall and buying a bunch of crap you’ll get rid of when it goes out of fashion.
Set systems, not goals.
Setting specific $ budgets or maximums can feel restrictive, so I’d focus more on the actions and behavior to work towards them. For me, this is putting in place things like:
* Not hitting “Checkout” on orders for things that are non-essentials. If it’s something that I don’t actually want/would benefit from then I’ll forget about it; otherwise I’ll come back in a few days/weeks to order
* Where applicable, looking into secondhand options first before buying new. I’ve found a number of great secondhand clothing items through thrift stores/secondhand platforms online and am also active in my local Buy Nothing group!
* Prioritizing buying produce and grocery staples over snacks/more processed items at the grocery store; once I fill out my shopping basket with what I actually need, there rarely is room for the latter
* Looking into free/cheap event options – my local library frequently hosts events and offers free tickets to local museums as well. I follow a number of newsletters/substacks that regularly share upcoming events and there are local IG accounts that have this too