Image sourceMost of the time, when you read articles and blog posts about saving money, you’re bombarded with lots of advice that require you to vastly change your lifestyle if you want to have more money in the bank. You’ll be told to stop buying your veggies at the store and grow them at home instead or to cut the cable and start reading more books instead of watching the TV; some people will even advise that you cut your own hair! Although there is nothing wrong with these tips, and they will undoubtedly save you money, they aren’t what you want to hear because they are asking you to change your lifestyle too drastically.
The good news is, you can save money without changing your lifestyle very much at all. Here are some pretty painless ideas that will help you to save more money every month while pretty much maintaining the kid of lifestyle you have now:
Turn Down the Temperature
If you turn down your thermostat temperature down by just three degrees, unless you experience a sudden arctic blast, you are unlikely to notice the difference in your home’s coziness levels, but you will definitely save at least 10 percent on your energy bills, which depending on how much you pay each month, could represent a significant saving!
Switch Power Suppliers
As long as the lights come on and you can heat your home, you don’t really care where the energy come from right? It won’t make any difference to how you live your life, will it? So, start looking around for the best electricity and gas prices available to you and make the switch. There is no reason to be loyal to the power company when you could save tens of dollars every month by switching, so do it now.
Determine the Best Time to Do the Laundry
Image sourceMany power companies run peak and off-peak hours and if your run your power-guzzling appliances like the washer and dryer during off-peak hours, you can save lots of money. This is a really easy lifestyle change to make because the laundry needs to be done no matter what and switching it to a later hour is unlikely to affect your lifestyle very much at all.
Turn Stuff Off
Before you leave the house, or when you aren’t using it, turn everything from the TV to the lights off. Leaving stuff on when you aren’t using it, and certainly when you aren’t even in the house is madness from a money-saving perspective, and it isn’t exactly good for the planet either!
If you’re concerned about maintaining the illusion that someone is home to deter burglars, then install a few energy efficient LED lamps in your home and connect them with a timer-based power strip, so the lights will come on for a little while when it gets dark.
Start Planning Your Meals
One of the most common ways we waste our cash as a nation is by shopping without a grocery list, particularly if we do so when we’re hungry. Why? Because when we don’t have a list we tend to buy all kinds of random things that may or may not feed us for a whole week in way that makes sense, and when we’re hungry, we tend to throw a lot more junk into the cart. By working out, then, what we plan to eat for a whole week and creating a list that contains only the ingredients to make those meals, we can save money. We’ll probably save a few pounds from being added to our bodies too!
Check the Unit Prices
While we’re on the subject of grocery shopping, don’t be fooled into thinking that the item with the lowest sticker price is the one that represents the best value – often it is not. You see, when you’re comparing like items, you need to compare the unit price, not the sticker price to see which represents true value for money. You’d be surprised how much you can save simply by doing this.
Bulk Buy
Image sourceWaiting until non-perishable goods that you use regularly go on sale – things like toilet paper, trash bags and dried beans and pulses – and then buying them in bulk is another smart way to save dollars without changing your lifestyle.
Use Coupons
When you’re buying anything, whether it’s groceries or electronics, look online for coupons first. It’s never been easier to find coupons and using them means you can keep buying the things you love, maintaining your current lifestyle, for less. You know it makes sense.
Make Do and Mend
Instead of immediately tossing that dress when the seam split or those shoes when the sole comes away if they are in otherwise good condition, mend them instead. You’ll save bags of money when you don’t immediately toss stuff because it’s no longer perfect and you’ll learn a few handy skills along the way too.
Check Your Tire Pressure Regularly
Image sourceIf you’re looking for a good way to cut the cost of running your vehicle, then as well as shopping around for the best gas prices, you should be checking the pressure of your tires regularly too. What a lot of people don’t realize is that when you’re tires are at the optimum pressure, your vehicle runs more efficiently, burning more gas per mile than a vehicle where the air pressure is lower than it ideally should be.
Cancel those Memberships
If you actually go to the gym regularly and if you actually watch Netflix quite often, then they’re probably worth holding on to, but if you don’t, then cancel those memberships right now. Why are you paying money for something you don’t use? Most of the time, you only have to click a button to stop paying, and you’d be foolish not to!
Lifestyle changes are sometimes necessary when it comes to saving money, but as you can see, there are lots of really easy tweaks you can make to maintain the lifestyle you’ve become accustomed to and beef up your bank balance at the same time!
