5 Easy Ways to Save Money

We close on the house one week from today, so Alex and I have been packing things up and preparing for the move. We are so excited to get settled in the house; it’s hard to believe it’s almost here! Needless to say with all of the house costs (down payment, closing costs, moving costs, furniture, paint, tools… phew.) we’ve been trying to save a little extra money. To be honest, we’re both pretty frugal already, but we’re doing everything we can to save a few more bucks!

So in the spirit of Frugal Friday, I thought I’d share some money-saving tips.

Know what you’re making & know what you’re spending. That sounds basic, but do you really know? If you haven’t tracked your spending over a few months, you probably don’t realize just how much you’re saving spending. Alex and I had both been tracking things individually, but it’s been confusing with all of our separate accounts, so now we’ve made more of an effort to combine everything so we know exactly where our money is going. That might sound like a crazy-control-thing but it’s really just good to know.

Go grocery shopping & cook your own food. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but cooking at home can be much cheaper than takeout. That said, picking up 20 new ingredients for one recipe isn’t the best for your budget, plan out recipes for the week to make sure you can use up the rest of the ingredients or make enough leftovers to pack your lunch. (Need some budget friendly recipes?)

Only save the coupons you’ll actually use. I’m not a huge coupon clipper, but I do use them occasionally. The trick is to only save the “good” ones. Don’t cut out coupons for things you wouldn’t normally buy. (That’ll just encourage you to buy things you don’t need.) If you have a huge stack of half-expired coupons and you’re not sure what’s in there, you’ll never actually use any of them.

Avoid shopping temptation. Let me tell you something. If I go into Target to buy shampoo, I will most definitely come out with 4 other things that I didn’t plan on buying. I absolutely love Target. So much so, that I can’t let myself go in there if I’m trying to save money. There are just too many other “great deals” along the way. I can breeze through the mall without a second glance but for me, Target is my weakness. You know where your weakness is. Don’t go there.

Use Unroll.Me for online coupons. I’ve written about how much I love Unroll.Me before (it’s so awesome for cleaning up your inbox) but I also love it because all of the sale coupons (you know, Banana Republic, Gap, J Crew) go to my daily “roll up” of e-mails. That means, if there is something I really want from Banana Republic, I can open the Unroll.Me message and get it, but it also means I don’t see all of those e-mails unless I open my daily subscription. The coupon is there if I need it, but I don’t end up with temptation peeking through my inbox. (Besides, isn’t Loft always having a 30% off sale?)

These are just a few ways to spend less money… so you can save it for the things you really want. (For me, that’s this dining room table.) For more ways to save money, check out my tips for budget friendly grocery shopping!

What are your tips for saving money?

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