10 Simple Tips to Save Money

Saving money is a quick and relative easy way to get a good financial health. Not only in times of financial crisis, but on a regular day to day base. After a while you’ll be surprised how much money you can save. Money you threw away almost unnoticed. Building up your savings or repaying your debts by using these simple tips almost feels like free money! If you have some money saving tips yourself please share them in the comments below.

Save on heating costs 

You can save a lot of money on heating bills. If you live in a modern build house, it’s probably fairly well insulated. Instead of letting the heater run until the moment you go to bed you can turn it off earlier, say one or two hours before you go to bed. On a yearly base you save quite a lot of heating hours this way. And you might even sleep better because of the cooler air during your first hours of sleep.

Pay cash

When possible, pay with cash. Research has shown that people who pay cash spent less. When paying with cash you feel ‘the pain of paying’ and you see a direct result in your wallet. When paying with a (credit) card or online with a service like Paypal there is no physical proof of the transaction which makes it harder for our brain to value the amount we’re spending. This way the ‘pleasure of consuming’ becomes stronger than the ‘pain of paying’.

Take care of yourself

This tip  does not only save money it enhances life in general. Being in good mental and physical health reduces the urge to buy consumer goods. How often do we buy things that we do not really need? Probably more often than you think. Buying new things is addictive because of the pleasure it gives. It stimulates the reward areas in our brain. Have you ever bought that fancy little gadget or piece of cloth because you felt sad and thought it would cheer you up?  It probably did, for a short time. By taking good care of yourself, eating healthy, exercising regularly, you’ll feel more energetic and content with yourself. The urge to buy will decline, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle over a long time will save you money on medical costs.

Less is more

When using household or personal care products watch the amount you’re using. For brushing your teeth you do not need more toothpaste on your brush than a little blob with the size of a pea. Ask your dentist! By not covering the whole brush your tube of toothpaste will last at least twice as long. The same can be said of almost all other household or personal care products you can think of. One normal push on a soap dispensers will give you enough soap to wash a small village, so push it only halfway in. 

There’s money in your wardrobe

Got nothing to wear? Are you desperately in need of some new cloths? That little dress you bought last week doesn’t fit so nice after all? Get your friends together and organise a trade night. Everybody got one or more items in their wardrobes that hang there unused. Either brand new because once bought they didn’t like it anyway or used but not worn anymore. Bring that stuff and trade it! You’ll have a nice happening with your friends, you’ll get some new clothes for free and last but not least you get rid of unused stuff in your wardrobe. That’s what we call a win-win-win situation.

Pump your ride

Check the tires of your car on a monthly base. When the tires are too soft, pump them up! By keeping your tires hard you can save about 2% on gas. Besides you’ll have a shorter stopping distance and better road holding. Of course do not exceed the maximum allowed pressure of your tires.

Saving on heating is hot

So here’s another heating tip. Instead of wearing a t-shirt at home, put on that pullover and turn down your heather one or two degrees, it’ll save you about 7% on heating costs. Letting in fresh air regularly will also reducing heating costs. By letting in fresh air you reduce the amount of moist air in your house. Moist air costs more energy to heat that fresh dry air.

Measuring is knowing

Maybe the most important tip to save money is the following: track your expenses! If you don’t know how much money you spend, you can’t change it. You have to make it visible. If you track your expenses you suddenly see that this one dollar candy bar you buy each day costs you 30 dollars a month, 360 dollars a year. That’s a lot of money. By making your expenses visible this way you can make a rational choice. If the candy bar is worth that 360 dollars, fine, you can still buy it. Nowadays there’s a lot of great websites online where you can track your expenses for free, see for example  http://www.go2web20.net/#tag:money+tag:track but a self made spreadsheet will do as well of course.

Repay your debt

Being in debt is the main financial disease in the Western world. If you are in debt make a plan to  repay it as quick as possible. Being in dept costs you a lot of money and you get nothing for it. The best way to repay your debt is to start repaying the biggest loan first and work your way down to the smaller ones. You pay the most interest on the biggest loan. You can use the money you save by repaying this loan for the smaller loans. Another option is to consolidate your separate loans into one big loan with a lower interest rate. With other words you get a new loan to pay off the separate loans. Make sure you get the lowest possible interest rate on your new loan. Get some advice to decide what’s the best option in your situation.

Unsubscribe

Make a list of your subscriptions like magazines, newspapers, insurances and media connections. Write down the contract expiration date of each subscription. Now set reminders in your calendar for each subscription so you don’t forget when to check for better deals and switch or unsubscribe. 

Enjoy trying out these tips and have fun saving money!If you have some tips yourself please share them with other readers in the comments below.