Key Takeaways
- Take at least two days before buying a cart of “stuff” on Amazon or any other online shopping site.
- Keep your credit card numbers to yourself and don’t just store them at your favorite sites for convenience.
- Pack your own lunch and make your own coffee.
- Eliminate forgotten fees for subscription services.
- Keep track of everything you spend.
Hey, you know what? I’ve got a stock tip for you!
No, I’m just kidding. I can’t do that anyway. I’d get in all sorts of trouble. But, I really do! No, I really don’t, but I do have five great tips to help you save money. I know it’s not as exciting as a hot stock tip, but practicing these tips will make a big difference over time.
Forget the stock tips and follow these instead:
- The 48 hour rule. You know how you get on Amazon — or whatever your favorite shopping site happens to be — with plans to buy a bunch of stuff? And it’s so convenient now with the one-click and BAM, it’s done. Or, you call up ALEXA™ and she does it for you…immediately? Just put your items in the cart and come back 48 hours later. If it still makes sense, they you can buy it. You’ll be surprised how many things you realize you don’t really need or want.
- Don’t store your credit card numbers at online sites. I know, it’s convenient and easy to do that at the online sites you frequent. But it also makes it so easy to buy — even when it might be an impulse purchase. When you don’t store your number, you’re required to stop and input the information. This extra step may get you to thinking, “Hey, I don’t really need this.” It helps you to discern whether this is more of a want or a need.
- Pack your lunch and make your own coffee. Making your own coffee, rather than going to one of those popular places to buy it saves anywhere from three to five, or more, bucks each time. Packing your own lunch takes some planning, but saves even more money.
- Root out the forgotten fees. I’ve seen this in my own life. You might have some forgotten fees. You sign up for a monthly service — maybe a music service, or whatever — for $5.00 a month, or even just $1.99 a month. Determine whether or not you’re using this service anymore by going back six months and checking. This kind of spending happens behind the scenes and it’s wasting a lot of money.
- Log all of your expenses. I know, right now you’re probably thinking, “No way. I’m not doing that.” Well, you might check out my other blog post about Financial Fridays where you can go onto a particular wealth portal, or any consolidation site, and it will do all of the logging for you, behind the scenes. And every Friday,, you can check the report to make sure you’re not spending your money on stuff you don’t really want to spend it on. It’s great to do this on Fridays because it’s the start of the weekend when we do most of our instant gratification spending.
You can save thousands of dollars a year by practicing these four tips. Thousands of dollars a year? That makes a huge difference. It’ll help you reach other goals that you have for your money and savings as well.
Until next time, enjoy.
Gary