Are you in your 20s and have just started earning your regular income? or Are you in your 30s struggling with managing your monthly bills? on Are you in 40s and worried about the retirement planning? Yes! In every stage and age of life, it is crucial to save money from your monthly salary for your future.
It is important to learn how to save money as much as to earn more money. Struggle to earn more and save more money is real. Earning more isn’t so easy and needs lot of efforts so better focus on saving more which can be achieved with small steps
Good financial habits go a long way in helping to live within our means.
Extra money can be spend on your dream vacation or to secure your child’s future education or even plan your retirement. Sounds so good!!
So learn best ways to save money from your salary every month to achieve bigger goals in your life.
20 tips and tricks to save money every month even with family and kids.
1. Make a monthly budget
Budget, budget, budget! For every expense that you have planned, for every expense you plan to incur. Budget planner gives you an overall picture of the major areas of your expenses.
Divide the budget into major sections – food, rent, education, monthly bills, health and savings too.
Make an estimate of your expenditure on each of this section. Skim through your monthly credit card bills. You will get a rough idea about your expenditure for the month. This forms your base for savings.
Now you have a rough picture of your expenses and you can decide on how and where you can cut corners.
2. Make Savings goals
Goals give you direction for your every action. Setting a savings goal shall be your mark your target for the action to be taken.
50/30/20 rule of thumb has to be followed while dividing your income – 50% of salary should go towards your necessities of food, rent, monthly bills. 30% towards your personal expenses such as entertainment and travel while 20% has to go into compulsory savings. You can try to achieve the savings more than 20% to reach your goals faster.
3. Cooking at home
Dining out can be expensive as compared to cooking at home. Nutritious unprocessed meals in budget make cooking at home a win-win situation.
The packaged, ready to eat food is highly processed with preservatives. So in long run it is not good for health too. You may plan to cook simple one pot meals or do meal preps for entire week in one batch to save time and efforts.
4. Meal planning ideas
The major difficulty of cooking at home is “what to cook” such that you spend less time in kitchen while cooking variety of meals within budget.
Meal planning apps shall guide you about various recipes that can be cooked quickly. You may even use meal planner book or printable meal planner to plan your weekly meals.
Include more of cheap and nutritious foods like Rice, Vegetables, Potato, Eggs in your meals.
You can plan your meals as per the availability of ingredients in your home. This shall reduce the wastage of food too. You can balance with boring yet nutritious food and some interesting food that your kids love in your meal plan.
5. Do it yourself
Engaging specialized services costs you bomb of money. Brushing on some skills shall help you save lot of money. You may use sites like Coursera, Udemy or Skillshare to gain skills. Google search or Youtube is always an easy way to know “how to” do everything under the sun.
Hair and skin treatment
Learn how to take care of skin and hair by simple ingredients in the kitchen. It is natural and safe way instead of using harsh chemicals so often.
Home décor
Youtube can teach you many ways of making amazing creative home décor with the simple things easily at your home. Follow such channels on Youtube and you shall not only save money but also reduce carbon footprint on the earth.
Cleaning products
Avoid buying multiple cleaning products for different use. The detergent powder used to wash clothes or the liquid soap used for washing dishes can also be used to wash bathroom floors or window glass.
You can make organic washing solution by using soaked soapnuts with peels of lemon. This is natural, cheap and environment friendly way of cleansing options instead of store bought liquid soap.
Repairs
The fan isn’t working or iron isn’t heating up. No problem! Just look for how to repair it on youtube. You can fix the broken or damaged things in your household yourself without relying on the professionals.
6. Cancel Subscriptions
If you are beginner with your fitness workout or if you are too busy and miss your Gym often, it is advisable to cancel Gym subscriptions and buy equipments to set up gym at home. All you need is pair of dumbells and resistance bands.
If you have multiple cable or OTT membership such as Netflix or Amazon prime, you can either cancel one of them or pause them and use them alternate month. This shall save you few bucks. Multiuser packages also save money if more than one member of family use them.
Cancel the magazine subscriptions if you aren’t using them. Most of the magazines also have cheaper online subscriptions to choose from.
7. Kitchen appliances
Invest in the multipurpose kitchen appliance so it shall save you cost of having more appliances. Buying a Conventional microwave functions as microwave and as baking oven. 
8. Unsubscribe from shopping sites
Once you buy from the shopping sites, you subscribe to their emails. The shopping sites send tempting emails with sales and offer which may make you buy on impulse. Unsubscribe from such shopping sites.
Unroll does that magic. Download Unroll.me to help you sort the sites which you have subscribed to.
9. Save water
Reduce the consumption of water in your house. Annually millions of fresh drinking water is wasted in household alone. There is an urgent need to understand about better usage of water.
Note the consumption of water per month as per your bill, take small steps to reduce the use of water and then note the reduction in bills. This cuts your monthly bills as well as saves the important natural resource of water
10. Save Electricity
Electricity is big chunk of our monthly bills. Reduce the consumption of electricity, use energy efficient appliances, unplug the appliance not in use. Simple steps shall help you save money off your monthly bills.
11. Buying grocery in bulk
You shall get rough idea about the ingredients that you shall need with help of meal planning. So you can buy grocery in bulk especially non-perishable items. Bulk packages are generally cheaper.
Look for lower racks and markup counters for items on special discount. Take care of expiry dates on these products and make an informed decision of buying it
12. Shopping at local stores during sale
Keep an eye on local stores for discount or sales. Black Friday or white Wednesday may be good time to buy. You may buy during sale in bulk and save more money.
13. Buy Generic Products
Local stores shall also sell locally manufactured products. These products are generally priced lower than branded ones. Take into account the quality of these generic products. Go for it.
14. Redeem points and Use coupons
Airlines give airmiles for use on flights and accommodation, Shopping stores have points that can be redeemed over next purchase. Keep an eye and make best use of them.
There are sites like Groupon, Nearbuy, Grabon or Cobone that provide discounted coupons for eating joints, entertainment zones or health treatments. Search for best coupon available in your country.
15. Use of Credit cards
Credit card is double edged sword. Mindless spending can lead to debt trap. However if used judicially, it can save you much more than you think.
Most of credit cards are partnered with local outlets to provide discounts on purchases. Study the card that you own. Check the other cards in the market that cater to your general expenses.
Just remember to pay off the credit card bill on time to avoid penalties.
16. Entertainment without spending
If you have kids at home or if you have active social life, entertainment could be big chunk of your monthly expense. Instead of going to shopping mall, you may opt for free or low cost entertainment.
Take your kids to beach or park or museum, get together at friends place, play some board game, grab popcorn and watch movie together, participate in marathon or such social activity.
You will also build beautiful memories with your children. Spending more time with children and joyful moments also relaxes you better than anything in the world. True, isn’t it?
17. No spend day / Week
Observe no spend day or week. Limit your trips to the stores. Make a list and only shop once a week or if possible once a fortnight.
If you want to buy something online, put it in shopping cart, wait for 3 days and check again if you want to continue with purchase. Mindful shopping shall avoid impulsive buying.
18. Indulge in inexpensive hobby
Go to library, read books, plant garden in your backyard, pursue course on the education sites, volunteer in social service groups, explore your neighbourhood.
All these activities shall keep you feeling motivated and accomplished and also keep you away from consumerism or mindless shopping.
19. Buy quality products
Look for quality than price. Cheap items do not last long. When you buy cheap items and throw them away after single use, you waste money and also pollute the environment by adding to garbage pile.
20. Minimalist lifestyle
Practicing minimalism goes a long way to change your mindset about shopping. Minimalism is to avoid hoarding the stuff that you do not need. Own few items, only as much as you need for your daily routine. Lesser stuff means lesser clutter, lesser expenditure, lesser worry.
Minimalism breaks the shackles of buying for sake of keeping up with your status symbol. You must have noticed the dressing of Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs.
Simplicity in the way of life brings focus on our actions, our goals and the success we aspire to achieve in life.
Minimalist lifestyle cannot be achieved in a day or week. Its long journey of acceptance of your own self and realization of your minimal personal needs. Take a small step.
Final word
You can save money by making small changes to your life style. By being more mindful about every penny you spend.
Have you decided how you are going to save money every month? Do you have any other ways to save money which have worked for you? Let me know in comments below.
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