5 Simple Ways To Cut Back Your Spending
These simple hacks are sure to save you money
Saving money is something that, in my opinion, everyone should do. Yet, as far as I’ve seen, it’s not something that many people are very good at.
Many people that are on the journey of starting to grow their savings accounts focus on the act of putting money aside, which yes, is very important (I even have an article on how you can begin growing your savings account this way).
However… we often fail to consider how we can cut back our everyday living expenses and the vast impact that spending less money on a daily basis can also attribute to our savings.
All of the little things that we pay for on a regular basis adds up, often being way more expensive than we ever realize.
Getting in the habit of being cost-efficient about the things that we have to pay for on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis can end up saving thousands upon thousands of dollars in the long run.
That being said, here are some simple ways that you can start being more cost-effective with your regular spending habits…
Log Your Spending Habits
Log your spending habits by writing out a spreadsheet of exactly what you spent. Do this either monthly or bi-weekly.
When logging your spending, categorize each of your expenses as specifically as possible — for example, food may have multiple categories just by itself. One possible way that you could specifically categorize your food expenses is by splitting them into sub-categories such as groceries, fast food, restaurants, gas station.
Logging your spending habits requires you to take a look at where you spend the majority of your money.
If you log your spending and see that a greater portion of your money is being spent in a category than previously thought, you can allow yourself to rework your budget to be more strict in areas where your spending isn’t absolutely necessary.
Start Making Your Coffee at Home
I recently bought my boyfriend a coffee machine so he could start making his own coffee. Prior to this, he would stop every single morning at the gas station to buy his coffee on his way to work.
A few weeks after he started using his coffee machine, he came to me and said, “I feel like I’ve saved so much money lately by making my coffee at home.”
We dove into how much he’d been spending to get his gas station coffee versus how much he was now spending to make his own at home, and we were blown away.
A $4 coffee at the gas station every morning (which is relatively cheap compared to a coffee at somewhere like Starbucks) comes out to over $1,400 a year… on coffee.
This dollar amount was astronomical compared to the less than $400 a year that would be spent on coffee and disposable cups to make your own brew at home (after the initial cost of your coffee machine). And if you use reusable cups, that number goes down to about $200 per year.
Long story short… make your coffee at home. It will save you hundreds of dollars every year.
Go Reusable as Often as Possible
Going back to the coffee section above, you can see that there’s a substantial amount of savings when using reusable cups/mugs over using disposable ones.
So on that note… go reusable as often as possible.
Reusable coffee cups, reusable water bottles, kitchen rags instead of paper towels, real plates, and flatware… the list goes on.
Going reusable is not only good for the environment but it saves you money.
The initial cost of buying reusable items is often greater than the initial cost of buying disposable items however, in the long run, reusing things will save you money due to the fact that you won’t need to constantly restock.
Turn Down the Temperature on Your Hot Water Heater
Check your hot water heater to make sure it’s set to about 120 degrees Fahrenheit… This is a super simple way to save some money that takes very little time and energy.
Most people never think about the temperature of their hot water heater and will simply leave it at the setting picked by whoever installed or performed maintenance on it last. This temperature is often higher and more expensive to maintain than necessary.
Experts recommend that you keep your hot water heater around 120ºF as a means of keeping your water hot enough for whatever you may need, but cool enough that the hot water heater doesn’t need to be working overtime to maintain its temperature.
There is an estimated 3%-5% savings for every 10ºF reduction in the temperature of your hot water heater. Depending on how much hot water you use, this reduction in temperature has the potential to save you hundreds of dollars over time.
Replace your lightbulbs with LED’s
This is another simple one that we’ve probably all heard of before, however, it really is effective.
While LED lightbulbs are slightly more expensive than incandescent or halogen bulbs, the slight upgrade in cost is almost certainly worth it. LEDs are more energy-efficient, have a lifespan almost 10 times that of other bulbs, and are more cost-effective once installed.
Essentially, even though you pay a little more upfront, you save big in the long run.
With 10 times the lifespan of other bulbs, you have to replace LED’s far less often than other light bulbs. In addition, the increased energy efficiency has the potential to save you hundreds of dollars per year.
These five simple steps are things that I suggest everybody do as a means to cut back their spending and save lots of money over time.
Even though some of these suggestions only save you a couple of dollars at a time, a couple of dollars a couple of times a week adds up to a substantial amount in the long run.
Essentially, to save money, we all just need to be more aware of the little expenses in our lives. Our daily living expenses can often be a major money-suck if we aren’t considering how to be cost-efficient when we go about them.
Follow these steps, and begin to contemplate where you can cut back on your regular expenses, and you’re sure to save money in the long run… I promise you.
