In my professional organizer life, I saw the effects of overspending in my clients’ homes. Now that our social media platforms have morphed into glorified shopping apps, I feel compelled to share these 8 money saving tips to stop the flow of money out of your bank account!
Trust me, I get it and I’m guilty!
Someone we follow on Instagram shares their amazing new and inexpensive Walmart dress and we immediately “add to cart!” I love me some Walmart. I loved Walmart before they upped their game in fashion and home decor!
I also loved K-Mart. Can we have a moment of silence to mourn the loss of the beloved K-Mart Deli and the Blue Light Special?
Back to that dress we saw on Instagram and added to our carts…I have 2 Walmart dresses to return right now. I told you I was guilty!
The ease with which we can purchase just about anything these days is wreaking havoc on our checking accounts and our credit card balances. I’m no money expert and have made some really questionable purchases in my life, like one of those Walmart dresses I need to return that makes me look like I’m 8 months pregnant!
I’m here to be the voice of reason and maybe that nagging voice in your ear talking you out of putting that overpriced, too-big to-hold with one-hand mug for drinking water in your cart! You know the one!
That reminds me of the line from Ben Rector’s Range Rover “Saving Pictures on that big iPhone…You know the one.”
So here I go with my tips to keep money in your bank account and UPS from making too many unnecessary trips to your house! These are in no particular order, by the way!
Money Saving Tip #1 – Delete Your CC info
The first thing you can do to keep your money is delete your credit card information from your online store accounts.
If your credit card information isn’t going to automatically populate and you have to walk up the stairs or down the stairs or get out of your bed to make the purchase, you are less like to make impulse purchases.
I know I know…some of you have your 16-digit credit card numbers, expiration dates, and CVC numbers memorized. Clearly, this tip isn’t for you! You have bigger issues!
For some reason, my Old Navy credit card information is never stored in the app. If I’m sitting in bed scrolling and see something that I think I “need” and I have to go search the house for my purse to put in the card number, I am 95% less likely to buy that thing I “need.”
Money Saving Tip #2 – Tap Unfollow
All of the social media platforms have this magical feature where you can unfollow people who affect our contentment and who influence us to spend money we don’t have to spend! Start tapping unfollow and keep your money!
This tip really covers more areas than just the balance in our bank accounts.
If you are aware that certain people you follow on LTK or Instagram or FB or TikTok – pick your poison – create urges in you to buy things you don’t need, pause their content from showing up in your feed.
There are times in our lives when we need to rid ourselves of temptation. Money spending habits often require us to remove the temptation.
The Bible says we should FLEE temptation! I’m not trying to get all spiritual, but at its core money is a spiritual issue!
Money Saving Tip #3 – Do I Need This?
Another way to keep your money is by asking some hard questions. I’m gonna provide you with a few hard questions so be ready! The first of those questions is DO I NEED THIS?
Let’s be real. We all have a hard time distinguishing between needs and wants.
We are easily distracted by the newest color or pattern or style of items that flash in front of us on our feeds.
How many shirts, dresses, throw pillows, large mugs to hold water, etc. do you NEED?
It’s like my current obsession with dresses!
My workplace is in the basement of my house. Do I wear dresses to my basement every day? Nope!
Do you know how often I wear a dress to church? Rarely? Do need more dresses to wear to church? Nope!
Our most frequently visited restaurants are Taziki’s, Taco Mama, and Panera. Do any of these places require a dress? Nope!
Wanna know the last time I went to a wedding? That would be April 2016!
Do I need another dress? The answer is NO!
I did wear a dress to Bailey’s graduation, but found that was totally unnecessary! Jeans and a T-shirt would’ve been perfectly acceptable!
Money Saving Tip #4 – Will I Use This?
Ready for our next keep your money question? Too bad!
There are gadgets and potions galore available that claim they will make our lives easier or our skin more youthful. And though these amazing gadgets may be able to back up their promises, we’ve gotta assess whether or not we will really use these things. We’ve gotta ask ourselves Will I Really Use This?
We are easily wooed and swayed. We want quick fixes and all the things that will make our lives easier.
The problem is that just purchasing an item and having it in our homes isn’t going to improve our lives and it doesn’t guarantee we’re ever going to take said item out of it’s packaging.
I bought an instant pot a few years ago that promised easier meals and quicker cooking. What a joke? I found that I didn’t cook the way all the instant pot recipes wanted me to cook. I could use one pan on the stove and cook the same dishes in just about the same amount of time and didn’t have worry about having my nose blown off by the lid to the instant pot!
A few weeks ago, after toting the instant pot to 3 different houses, I gave it to Goodwill.
I never used it because I had never experienced all the benefit the instant pot was going to reward me with. Did you know that an instant pot is indeed NOT instant?
Let’s stop spending money on items we know we aren’t going to use!
Money Saving Tip #5 – Does This Fit The Vision I Have For My Life?
Before you can even ask this question of yourself when contemplating a purchase, I suppose you should have a vision for your life. I’m not talking some woo-woo vision of light on a winding dirt road. Just some thought of where you want to be in the next year, 5 years, 10 years.
I’m guilty of seeing lots of online courses related to blogging or organizing or goals or whatever and thinking ooh that $9.97 is a great deal, only for said course to never be accessed.
So now I have started asking myself if I’m at a point in life when I am going to be focused on whatever that course is trying to teach me to do. Most of the time, I don’t have the time or energy to focus on whatever the course is teaching at the juncture in my life. So I hold off.
Maybe the vision of your life is just to not have crap everywhere. If that’s the case then lots of your purchases can be halted fairly easily.
If you’re wanting to try to function with a capsule wardrobe, you don’t need to buy 10 different colors of sneakers or 5 shirts in different colors because they’re cheap. You want 1 or 2 good quality items that will be useful with lots of different outfits. (I love the thought of a capsule wardrobe, but I’m not sure I’ll ever truly get there!)
Find your vision and stick with it!
Money Saving Tip #6 – Eat At Home
A few months ago, I started publishing my weekly meal plan and several people were shocked that I cook at home 6 nights a week. Most weeks, at least!
I have a family of 6 and all my kids are practically adults who love good food and pay zero attention to prices on a menu unless they’re swiping their own debit card! We can spend half of our weekly grocery bill eating out once! No kidding!
Groceries are expensive, but eating out is more expensive with a large family!
And as tired of cooking and cleaning as we get at our house, we know that we are able to say yes to other more important things than food because we eat at home as much as possible.
Find a few recipes your family enjoys and put them on repeat.
Maybe you start by decreasing the number of times you eat out by 1 meal each week until you’re mostly eating at home.
And then think back to Money Saving Tip #4 because if you have a vision for your life that may require a major purchase, you can start saving for that purchase and applying 2 of these tips by choosing to eat at home!
Money Saving Tip #7 – Declare a Spending Freeze
This one is easy. Stop the flow of money out of your account!
Often, you’ll see the hashtag #nospendnovember or #nospendnewyear floating around the social media apps. The point of these hashtags or the actions being bragged about by the hashtags is that money is only being spent on essentials for a specified period of time.
I’ve done this a few times in my life and it has been very helpful in causing me to be aware of how wasteful I am with money.
Set aside a specified period of time and say no to frivolous spending.
No to that new shirt.
No to that concert ticket.
No to that new bike.
If it isn’t affecting your ability to eat and sleep, you must say no!
You’ll save money. You’ll become aware of your out of control spending habits and hopefully, you’ll change those habits for the future.
Money Saving Tip #8 – Cancel Subscriptions You Don’t Use
Do you know if you’re paying for a streaming service twice? I am! I pay for Hulu under two different email addresses for absolutely no reason. None! This week, I’m cancelling one of those.
I have a couple of subscriptions that I need to cancel because I don’t use them. I signed up with good intentions or to watch one movie and forgot to cancel it after the free trial.
Now is a good time to go through your credit or debit card bill to see what streaming services you’re paying for and start questioning whether or not you ever watch any show on that service.
The cost of these services or magazine subscriptions don’t stay at their introductory rate! They increase a lot the 2nd and 3rd year.
The next time that magazine shows up in your mailbox that you paid a penny for initially, maybe check and find out when it’s up for renewal and cancel that renewal.
We waste lots of money on useless subscriptions and auto drafted expenses because we become immune to that $5-10 a month being deducted from our accounts. That $5-10 over the course of a year or two really adds up.
It’s time for us to hit the cancel button and cut the cord that chokes us via the internet!
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