20 Unexpected Ways to Save $50 from Your Monthly Budget

I had mentioned in a recent newsletter that I took a trip to Kansas City.  Last year I was diagnosed with a gene mutation which causes early onset heart disease. I tend to be a bit ‘crunchy.’  While having a stent (or two or three or four) put in or having open heart surgery was an option on the table, it wasn’t the direction I wanted to go. I wanted something a bit less invasive, so I found a clinic in Kansas City which does chelation therapy.  I’m not going to go into all the ins and outs of what happens there, but it does put a crimp in the checkbook.  From here on out this is something that we will have to pay out of pocket ourselves.

Since we have to pay things ourselves, I’m always on the lookout to save money.  Here are some of the tried and true methods I’ve discovered that help cut $50 or more from our budget – many of these save us $50 each month.  Some of them it takes a little longer for them to make it to the $50 mark.

 1.)  Add up your groceries as you put them in your basket.

This sounds too simple to be true, but when you have to add everything up as you put it in your cart, you see real-time how much this is costing you.  I find that when I do that, I make much better choices as to what should and what shouldn’t go into my cart on any given shopping trip.  When I don’t add up what is going into my cart at Aldi as I go along, I tend to overspend by $20-$50 A WEEK!!  This could be significant savings for you!

2.)   Pay Yourself First

Have you ever heard of the book The Richest Man in Babylon?  While I don’t agree with the paganism in the story, the principles are presented in a really easy-to-read story and make a great point!  The first point George Clason makes is to pay yourself first.  Always put 10% of your money in savings first.  Now, our family gives a bit more than that to charity monthly, but then for us, we pay ourselves 10% next.  Everything else has to fit into the other 80%

3.)  Consider a dumb phone

Did you know that the average US citizen wastes 90 minutes a day on their cell phones?  So not only do smartphones cost you more to use them, they zap your time!  I know I am SO guilty of this!  So consider switching back to a dumb phone if you’re looking to save time and money.

4.)  Choose a less expensive wireless carrier

If you decide that you really do need a smartphone, consider a less expensive carrier. We use Republic Wireless.  For BOTH of our smartphones, we pay less than $50 a month for unlimited wifi and 2 gigs of non-wifi 4G usage.

5.)  Use YNAB

YNAB stands for You Need A Budget.  Ok, this is going to sound crazy but my new favorite thing is budgeting with YNAB and you have to try it! It completely changed the way I think about money, the way I spend money, and for the first time in—ever?—I’m not stressed. I have a plan. You will thank me later.

6.) Use Honey

Honey is an extension that you can add to your browser.  Honey will automatically try coupon codes for the sites that you visit!  It will save you money and you don’t have to do anything, but accept the coupon code.  It is AMAZING!  This has saved me $40 on ONE purchase before.

Bonus for this is that on Amazon, it will tell you if you have the best price or if there is another seller whose price may be better after any shipping or tax charges.  It is a game changer!

7.) Use Wikibuy

Wikibuy is similar to Honey in that it can try coupon codes for you, but Wikibuy is different in that it will suggest other websites that have the same item for less!  They also have a way for you to earn credit through the for the purchases you make.

8.)  Sell things you don’t use with LetGo, Decluttr, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or eBay

Extra belongings cost you!  They will cost you in stress because clutter surrounds you.  They may cost you money if you have to fix them or pay someone to come get them or rent a storage unit to keep them until you want them.  Just get rid of things that you don’t need!  The upside is that you make money when you do.

9.) Determine why you’re saving.

Sometimes when you have a reason to save, it’s easier to do so!  If in our case, we want to go to the UK for our 30th anniversary (in 8 years), we have a concrete goal and a reason to save for it!  If you know that you will need a new to your vehicle in 2-3 years, stashing money aside now so that you can afford a decent, well-priced used vehicle helps you not to dip into savings when you’re tempted to spend $200 on clothes that you didn’t budget for.

10.) Unsubscribe from e-mails that tempt you to spend.  Save that money instead.

Uggg!!!  I LOVE Coldwater Creek!  I knew they went out of business, but I was thrilled earlier when I found out that they were back in business!  The problem is that I LOVE Coldwater Creek.  That means that I want to spend money.  Sometimes it’s just better for me to unsubscribe to those e-mails that tempt me to spend my money that I shouldn’t spend.

The bonus for you is that I know about a website called “Unroll Me.”  This website will hook up to your e-mail account, find all of your subscriptions, show you all of them, and ask you which ones you want to unsubscribe from, which ones you want to keep in your inbox, and which ones you want to be sent to you in a daily digest.  It’s amazing!

11.)  Pay your bills using autopay.

If you use your bank’s website to pay your bills automatically each month, you’ll never have a late bill!  That saves you tons of money.

12.)  Menu plan – and stick to it.

Each week before you go grocery shopping plan your menu.  Make sure that you are using as many items from you non-preparedness pantry as you can.  Always build your menus around what you already have.  Or you could take it a step further and…

13.) Challenge yourself to eat from your pantry for one week a month.

Are you like me.  I plan my meals and make sure that I buy everything that I need for them, but then something happens and we end up not eating all the meals that I planned?  Ever happened to you?  It happens to me 2-3 times a month at least.  Then there are other times when I don’t end up using the ingredients that I purchased for any given meal because I decided to tweak it.  My pantry is always billowing even at the end of the month.  Try this.  The first week of the month eat from your pantry using up all the pantry items that were not used the previous month(s).

14.)  Use LED Lightbulbs

LED light bulbs are getting cheaper by the day.  Each month switch out two or three incandescent light bulbs in your house using LEDs.  This will add up to significant savings over time.

15.) Do in-house “Date Night.”

This was birthed out of desperation.  When our oldest two children (they are twins) were a year old or so, my husband and I discovered that we really needed a regular time to reconnect without children.  The problem is that we were broke.  I mean B-R-O-K-E broke.  So going out to eat regularly was out of the question.  We decided that each week we would have steak and mushrooms at home.  Now our “steak” is usually a roast that stretches for 2 weeks of date night.  But it’s still ‘steak,’ and we could afford it.  We put the kids to bed early back then.  Now we let them go upstairs and play games quietly.  My husband and I talk and then watch a movie or two episodes of a TV show together while we eat.

16.) Start a garden

If you’re reading this blog, you probably have tendencies toward preparedness.  All of us should be working toward being able to garden – even those of us, like me, who has a black thumb can get better over time.  Having access to your own food is empowering and it helps save money since you have to buy less at the store.

17.) Borrow an eBook from your Library

I’m betting you know that most libraries have DVDs and Blue-ray movies, but did you know that most libraries now will loan you ebooks?  Instead of buying that Kindle book before you know that it really will be helpful, see if you can ‘borrow’ it from your library first.

18.)  Shop at Aldi

I am a HUGE fan of Aldi.  I can get great food at amazing prices.  If you’ve never shopped there before because you were afraid that it would feel like a discount store like Dollar General or Save-a-lot, it doesn’t.  Aldi is actually the sister company to Trader Joe’s.  As a matter of fact, in our area, all of the Aldi’s are getting remodeled.  We’ve been to a newly remodeled one and it really feels so similar to Trader Joe’s.

19.)  Stop paying for cable and use Netflix and Amazon Prime

When we moved recently, we were offered a “deal’ on television to go along with the internet that we purchased.  It was by no means a deal.  Each year, we purchase Amazon Prime for free 2-day shipping and free returns, so getting Prime Video is gravy.  We do also subscribe to Netflix.  Even if we ignore the free shipping and divide the cost by 12 months, I still pay less than $25 a month for “TV.”

20.)  Use an Ooma

I never wanted to cut the landline because we had kids at home, and I always wanted them to have access to a phone in case of emergencies, but when I found out that by purchasing an OOMA, my kids could have a phone line through our internet service, I was sold.  There is a one-time investment with the OOMA, then the monthly ‘fees’ charged by law only come up to about $6/month.  Again, this saves us a ton of money, and I have the peace of mind that when one of my children is babysitting the rest of my children, they can always get a hold of me.

What About You?

How do you save money?  What ways that I listed to save money that I listed here surprised you?  What things would you never consider doing?  I’d love to hear!  Leave a comment or reply to this if you are receiving it as an e-mail.

Remember, knowledge isn’t knowing something, it’s living it!

There are links in this post.  Some of the links may be affiliate links.  Some of the links may not be.  My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. These are the items that I have bought for my own family.  You can feel free to use my affiliate links, of which I will get a small amount in compensation, or you can choose to search out your products on your own.