Save Money Live Better In 2021 With These 25 Smart Tricks

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Save money live better if you invest your saved money

That’s what the above slogan should be using the highlighted sentence

Saving money itself is a target but not final destination

Savings without a mission is garbage. Your money needs to work for you, not lie around you

dave ramsey

Anyway many people don’t know how to save money and live a better life

There are few affiliate links, if you click a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you

That’s why I decided to prove that it is so easy to think about ways of saving money

What is more important is to take action and start saving for your future

According to Statista, 70% of Americans have less than $1,000 stashed away

That’s why I am going to show you smart ways on how to save money live better

Pay yourself first and automate transfer

Pay yourself first means to deduct an amount from every paycheck or percentage

I prefer to do that by automating the transfer asking your bank to setup this money automation for you

If you really want to save money and live better then apply only this smart trick

Stick to a budget

Believe it or not, creating a budget is the only way to save money and live better

I recommend you read my ultimate guide on how to start budgeting

That’s why I decided to share my best budget planner on my product page

Buy generic brands

If you are serious about saving money to live a better life then target buying generic brands

Go for generic brands on everything not only on groceries

But extend that to clothing and everything you spend money on

Practice the 30 days rule on non essential items

The 30 days rule is simply a method to use if you want to splurge on a big ticket item

Just put the product you want to buy back to the shelf and wait for 30 days

If you still feel that you want to buy it then go ahead for it

Use a jar for your spare change

I know this tip is not going to save money but you will live caring about every penny

But it will make you considerate and caring about losing these pennies

I had a previous post showing you the importance of taking saving pennies challenge

Setup a plan for the Tax refund season

Most of the times you may get a tax refund if you contribute to RRSP in case of Canada or IRA in case of US

Actually contributing to a retirement plan deduct from your gross income

So, you will be qualified for a tax refund

Don’t be fooled by any sales

Any sales can be useful if you really need that item

What if you browse in a mall and notice a steep discount

Before rushing in to buy the item thinking it is an amazing opportunity

Ask yourself if you really need this item

I remember I was at Costco and saw a winter jacket with incredible discounted price

To be fair, I was about to go and buy it

But I thought about it for a moment

I said to myself I have already 4 winter jackets

And I am working from home due to pandemic

Bottom line, it is a lucrative discount but I don’t need the item anyway

Cut cable and phone subscriptions

I know some people are really addicted to cable subscription

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to cut TV channels

All I recommend you to do it to replace your cable TV with IPTV

Instead of paying $50-$70 may be more per month

You can only pay $3 for similar IPTV channels

Same thing for your home phone

I am using VOIP phone and I am paying $30 annually

You know you even don’t need a home phone if you have a cell phone

Cancel magazine subscription and GYM membership

Almost all households have either magazine, GYM subscriptions or both

Do you really have time to read these magazines? I bet you’re not

Plus all magazines are published online now and you can read archived copies

Also, regarding your GYM membership

Did you ask yourself why you need your GYM membership?

Do you need for good treadmill, dumbbells and Incline bench press

If so, check your local community center if they have all these tools

Choose affordable rent or mortgage amount

If you really eager to know how to save money and live better then start with your mortgage

I always ask this question to my audience

Can you answer this question, how much you pay for a mortgage or rent as a percentage to your overall income per month?

I bet you won’t be able to tell that if you don’t maintain a budget

Use LED bulbs and turn off unnecessary lights

LED bulbs are not expensive as it used to be

You can expect to save up to $600 a year just by switching to LED bulbs

Also turning off unnecessary lights cannot be measured

But it is a good practice to save money and live a better conservative life

Use major appliances on low peak and weekends only

During the day there are 3 peaks of electricity consumption

This means if you operate your dish washer anytime during the day

You can expect to get different electricity bill

That’s why it is highly recommended to operate your major appliances during the low peak and weekends only

Low peak time is anytime between 7 pm to 7 am

Use smart thermostat

You never imagine how smart thermostat will save energy for you until you install one

But why? simply smart thermostat can do so many automated things that cannot be done with regular thermostat

Like switching off automatically the heat or cool air when your home reaches the desired temperature

Also programming your smart thermostat to switch it off when you are away and bringing your programming up an hour before you arrive at home

You can also add your future vacations and never worry about switching off your thermostat

One of the cool thing about smart thermostat is the ability to control it from your mobile through an app

Use coupons and cash back apps

Sometimes you buy something and find a coupon that could have saved you money

Nowadays you don’t have to worry about chasing coupons in magazines with mobile shopping apps like the below

Rakuten with $10 sign up bonus, MyPoints, TopCashBack, Qmee, ShopAtHome, Honey, Shopkick and Paribus

For buying food, there are grocery apps like Ibotta which gives you $20 sign up bonus

Also Fetch Rewards is a grocery app with $2 sign up bonus

While Receipt Hog, Cashout 51 and Storewards are another competitive grocery apps

Dosh works differently by monitoring your purchases after linking your debit or credit cards through the app

You also get $5 sign up bonus with Dosh

GetUpside is a cashback app for gas, it gives you 25 cents back on every gas receipt

Buy things with cashback credit cards

There are so many cashback credit cards in the market

I was using before incentive credit cards that rewards you with travel or merchandise points

Then I realized later that all points credit cards are waste of money as you require to pay an annual fees

Yes I know that some cashback credit cards require you to pay annual fees to open a new rewarding level

Trust me, it is really worth it if you do the math and calculate your annual spending compared to the annual renewal fee which you pay

For example, I have a Visa card with $60 annual fee that gives me 3% cash back on groceries, gas and recurring bills while 1% on anything else

Let’s calculate the groceries only for $500 a month

That’s worth $6,000 a year with 3% = $180

You pay $60 and keep $120 – I still have gas and recurring bill not included here

Plan your meals with shopping list

Planning your meals will really help you to save money and live a better convenient life

You don’t want to go to the grocery store more than once per week because you forgot to buy an essential item(s)

There are so many apps to make your grocery shopping list easy and fun

Personally I use a shopping app called AnyList

I love it as I have it integrated with Amazon Alexa

Every time I remember an item I just say Alexa add so and so to my shopping list

In the grocery store, I use AnyList to strikeout the items I buy

Use your leftover dinner for lunch at work

You can never imagine how much I saved money and lived better and healthy life once I stopped buying lunch at work

Before I was eating junk food at work

Now when cooking for dinner we always plan for extra food to take at work

Save money live better by Cutting alcohols, cigarettes and soft drinks

Yes, not only you will save money and also live a healthy life

Imagine you cut cigarettes completely – I say that if you smoke

Also, have alcohols on occasions and not a daily routine in your life

What about soft drinks, well there is no prove that it is not healthy

But at least it is so many sugar to consume

You can drink fresh juice if you want

Join wholesale club membership

I know all wholesale club require to pay annual membership fees

It is up to you but I made my calculations and I found it will be saving money and make me live convenient life

I will tell you why?

Buying meat especially ground beef and chicken from there is 50% cheaper than grocery stores

That’s for one item only and there are so many items you will save money

Bottom line, it is really worth paying this annual club membership

Recently I realized if I pay for the executive membership which costs $120 a year

I will be saving money instead of paying the $60

How? well the executive membership rewards you with 2% cashback

I noticed I consistently make $80 cashback per year this means my membership costs me $40 and not $60

Save money and reducing dinning out

I didn’t say cut the dinning out completely

All I ask you to be reasonable and budget an amount for your dinning out

Definitely you would save money and live a healthy life eating at home

Find cheap gas stations to save money

I know it is very obvious to fill up your gas from the cheapest station

Actually near my home, I have 2 gas stations after each other with one station always has the lower price

I always fill up gas going for the lowest price

Not everyone will do the same otherwise the gas station with the higher price would go out of business

Anyway, if you are like me how you know the nearest gas stations with low price on gas

Well, there is an app that is called GasBuddy which can list all the gas prices near you

Also consider using GetUpside to get $25 cents on each gas fill up

Know your needs and wants

So many people don’t know the difference between needs and wants

Do you know it?

If you want to save money and live smart life, you too have to know this difference

Your needs are everything that keep you alive

Your shelter like mortgage or rent, your food and transportation

You have to make sure to spend money on your needs efficiently

While wants are things that make us feel good about ourselves

We can survive without our wants but we cannot without our needs

Save money with side hustle

If you have a hobby that’s really good

You can save money and live enjoyable life of earning money from the thing you like to do or make

I recommend to read the following for pursuing a side hustle

How to make 200 dollars per day

Make 300 dollars fast in 2021

How to make 500 dollars fast cash free

Pay off your debt

Paying off your debt completely is a thrilling feeling that cannot be described

Once you finish your debt, you will start to save money and live relaxed life not full of any stress and anxiety

You will really start to enjoy the real meaning of saving money

Go for 52 weeks money saving challenge

I had before a separate post dedicated to the 52 weeks money saving challenge

Let’s summarize it below

Simply this is a saving challenge for the whole year where you save $1 for week one then $2 for week two and increase it by $1 every week

There are so many variations to achieve that

Bottom line, you will end up saving $1,378 in an easy and convenient way

Make quick easy cash now

Survey Junkie - Earn up to $35 per survey

Rakuten - Cashback on shopping - $25 welcome bonus

Be Frugal - Earn $10 when you sign up

Flipper - buy cheap sell high and make huge profit

Acorns - turn your spare change into more money

Follow me for updates on quick cash programs