And food is not always cheap.
We've all been there at one time or another, or maybe we are there now. Living paycheck to paycheck, just barely, and hoping that someday soon we'll be out of the dark abyss of debt and bills.
But until then, I've got a list for you specifically for these situations! All tried and true by yours truly!
This is:
8 Ways to Save Money With a Small Income
It's important to understand that one can't just do nothing and save money, you have to be willing to put a little bit of effort into wanting to save money whether it be research on how, or downloading a few simple apps.
#1. There's an App for that!
There's literally, not figuratively, but actually LITERALLY AN APP FOR EVERYTHING!! Whether you have trouble with budgeting what you spend, balancing all of your accounts, or finding money-saving apps, I promise, IT EXISTS!! A couple such apps that exist are:
"Prism Bills & Personal Finance" is rated with a 4.6 Stars as of September 2nd. You can hook up all of your bills, including Netflix, credit cards, banks, etc. You can input all of your bills and keep track of what you need to pay and how much you have already paid. It's sweet and simple.
"Mint: Budget, Bills, Finance" is also another free app in which you can also budget everything you need in one place. This app however can also add bills such as your education debt, your gas, groceries, and you get to see your credit score while your are paying bills. Don't be discouraged if you credit score is low or average, being able to see where you are can help you build up while you are paying off your bills. This in turn, will help build your credit slowly.
"Pocket Points" is an app for college students who are looking to get deals with anything, but mainly food. Pocket points is set up so that while the student is in class or on campus, they open the app and 'lock their phone' to obtain points while they are off of their phone. These points can then be spent on "Buy One Get One Free"'s at Dairy Queen, Sonic, and other places. It's really simple and it encourages the student to stay off of their phone while in class.
#2. Account text/SMS Reminders
My fiancee has setup every account he has, from all of our bank/credit accounts to our payment accounts, such as our energy bill, phone bill, and the likes, so that he gets text messages every day, EVERY DAY, at 7:15ish am, so he can be reminded about how much we have, and how much we owe. It's really nice because we can control what we spend where, without having to get complicated and guess how much is in our bank.
Knowing exactly how much you have, sets you up to know exactly how much you are going to spend. If you are a frivolous spender like myself, you'll think twice about spending what you don't have. Or, if you find yourself in a better week than usual, you might be able to treat yourself to a nice dinner out.
Speaking of food...
#3. Cook all meals, NO EATING OUT/FAST FOOD
This one, my fiancee and I had such a hard time with because we are college students, and college kids usually don't have the resources need to be able to cook. In the dorms, we aren't equipped with a stove and a fridge to store food to eat. However, there were definitely other alternatives to cooking on the stove that we could have utilized and would have been way Healthier For Ourselves, And Healthier On Our Budgets!
There are so may unique recipes online, especially on Pinterest!!
However, we now live in our own apartment off campus and we have saved hundreds of dollars a month on not eating out!! How crazy is that?? We spend about $25/week on groceries. If you don't believe me, my future self will write another post about how that is possible to do so! (Hint: Aldi's works wonders!!)
#4. Selling Crap You Don't Need/Use
There's a few quotes that makes this so much easier for me to sell extra stuff I just lying around but here's a couple:
"Your home is LIVING SPACE, NOT STORAGE SPACE." Francine Jay
"He who buys what he does not need, steals from himself." Swedish Proverb
Both of these are so fricken true!! When my mother was cleaning out her horde of a storage room, there were so many things that I set aside so I could go through; books, board games, art books, arts & crafts, but honestly, I didn't need any of these things. The last time I had knitted was so long ago, I had forgotten my knitting stuff were in there.
Trust me when I say this, if you don't want to get rid of whatever is holding you back from getting rid of it, you have a couple of options:
You can pick it up again, reference to my knitting, and get rid of all the yarn/arts&crafts you have..
You can imagine it as someone who actually has an interest in it and will use it for good purposes and you are preventing it...
or You can imagine that it's holding you back from a cleaner, simpler life.
The choice is yours..and the choice of extra income or your stuff just sitting there...I like the extra couple of bucks better!
#5. Tracking your expenses
I would have put this up higher to remind you guys that budgeting your income is the best, but sometimes, we don't really know where our money is going even after setting up an income plan!
So what you should do instead, is keep all the receipts, then after a week has gone by, highlight the days and the cost of what you bought/ate/drank/etc. After you do that for your week of receipts, you take a piece of paper, write down the weeks days (mon-sun) and under each day, write the total about of money spent on food, gas, bills, and other.
You should be able to see very quickly where your money is going. If it's going to food, refer to #3. If it goes to random knick knacks, or bullet journals you're never going to use regularly, then refer to #4. If it's gas or bills, I'm going to explain how to fix that with the point.
#6. Readjusting your lackless expenses
Lackless expenses are the items you have to buy to live comfortably, such as tampons, pads, dog food, gas, new work clothes, etc. These are items you can't wait to buy.
If your money is getting soaked up by your car, you might want to see if you can trade your auto friend to something with better gas mileage. My fiance's and my first big purchase together was a car. We had to give my car back to my parents since my brother's car broke down, and we traded my fiance's car for a car that had working A/C and heat, locked properly, and wasn't breaking down every other week. (Literally, there were times we thought we were stranded 30 minutes from home and had no way to drive back!)
Readjusting your lackless expenses will be easier than trying your bills. However, BOTH ARE POSSIBLE! You might be required to think outside of the box. Such as buying tampons and food with coupons instead of purchasing without, or buying dog food when it's on sale.
#7. Using Coupons wisely upon purchasing
I'm not like other people who will tell you that couponing has changed my life. Simple fact, it can if you let it but it might not be a good change. Couponing is definitely time-consuming but it's not an automatic reward. COUPONING IS NOT BASED ON TIME=REWARD. THE MORE AMOUNT OF TIME YOU PUT IN, DOES NOT MEAN YOU'LL SAVE MORE MONEY. You might actually end up spending more than you have.
When I coupon, it's not like extreme couponing, I won't be able to get $2,000 worth of food for $1. It's not like that usually because then companies don't make the money they are wanting to.
What to look for when you are couponing, should start with your grocery list first. If I'm buying tampons and dog food, they are always super cheap at the Dollar Store/Dollar General to begin with, then I look for coupons on dog food and tampons, there usually always there and it helps save you a couple of bucks to about $10.
We could fill up half a tank with $10! It's the little things that matter. So don't get confused and bedazzled by all of the coupons. ONLY GET WHAT YOU NEED TO GET. Just because it's a Buy One Get One (BOGO), does not mean you should go out of your way, and out of your budget to buy the BOGO cereal boxes that you don't need/eat. (This is just an example, if you eat cereal like myself, go for it. It's a good deal.) I just mean, don't waste time and money on items you really don't need just because it's a good deal.
#8. Looking into Cutting your Bills in HALF!
If it's possible, look at how much you are spending for that unlimited data plan for your family, or see how much energy you are using while no one is home. If your bills are pretty pricey and there's a definite possibility in making sure all the lights & electricals are unplugged while your home, or switching your plan to a limited data plan because it turns out that your family only uses 5GBs, or 10GBs, in your cycle, YOU CAN EASILY SAVE $100s BY JUST CUTTING IT BY A LITTLE BIT. It doesn't have to be cut in half but it's a definite GOAL to save so much more.
You can also invest into Energy Saving gadgets that will save you $100s-$1000s in the long run, such as Nest. My professor invested in Nest, it's an easy installation that replaces your thermostat and you hook it up to your phones. It times when you are in or out of the house and it adjusts the temperature so that you only pay for the cool/hot air when you are home.
Thanks for reading!!
Please post a comment about other ways you can save
