Unsubscribe from all forms of catalog and store emails.

homemade oatmeal for breakfast. no boxed cereals.

homemade bread and homemade soup for dinners.

sandwiches and an apple or orange for lunch. peanut butter, egg, or bologna sandwiches

drink water, if you must have coffee or tea make it at home

no alcohol, no soda, eat out once a week if you can't stand not eating out

drop gym membership and walk

rent rustic cabin from PATC for summer vacation or visit family, do not fly anywhere (unless you have miles and credits do it for free (including hotel and car rental))-

eliminate cable and have only internet, get cheapest phone plan you can find

lower the temp in your house in winter a few more degrees and raise it a few more in the summer

plant herbs in your yard, patio or window box - veggies if you have the space and light

only buy clothes when they wear out

don't buy clothes that require dry cleaning

use the library for your books, magazines and movies/tv shows

if something wears out or breaks, try doing without it.

keep your car in good working order

pay off credit card every month- use it for cash flow only

clean your own house, mow your own lawn

call and see if you can negotiate cheaper insurance (life, car, house...)

Commit to no online shopping. I was spending too much on prime. "O Tommy needs gloves?" Prime. "I ran out of cuticle oil." Prime. All these little things that I would normally add to a list that I did bi monthly was adding up. Half the time Tommy finds his gloves and I don't need cuticle oil or can certainly go a month before the next bottle. Its all those instant purchases that you OK because you "get them anyway" that really add up.

Anonymous wrote:Look at your biggest line items and slash small percentages from them. Way easier than chiseling away at smaller budget items that will be painful to cut but won't amount to much.

+1,000

Your biggest expense is housing and then transportation most likely

Housing you are probably stuck so just think twice about trading up or remodeling

Transportation wise try and drive for one more year and when buying consider used or spending less. You can easily save 10k or more that way

Sweating over 100 bucks a month is nothing compared to doing those two simple things

Third is probably food (going out) and you have already identified that issue

Send money off each paycheck directly to savings, and live on what's left.

Biggest help for us was knowing where our money was going. We use a budgeting app (upgrade from a spreadsheet) and track closely to see where we're going overboard and what can be trimmed. Trips to Target ended up being a big source of budget leakage, as was convenience food.

Look at your biggest line items and slash small percentages from them. Way easier than chiseling away at smaller budget items that will be painful to cut but won't amount to much.

Look at your fixed costs and see if you can get them any lowers, particularly phone and internet/TV. Try zero alcohol consumption rather than reducing it, as opposed to meat alcohol is not an essential nutrient. Any of the transportation cost you can cut? Bigger badder car = more gas and likely higher insurance premium. Do you go on shopping splurges? Cut down on that too.

Having said that, rather than having a amorphous goal of saving more cash, simply allot a certain percentage of your salary that's deemed no touchable and just adjust accordingly where you see fit.

I only cook what is on sale - if tomatoes are on sale, we are having tomatoes!

- cellphone plans
- internet/cable bills
- any other auto subscriptions

The quickest way to increase savings is to invest in yourself and see if u can get promotions or jump to another company for a pay increase or a side hustle

I want to aggressively increase our savings rate this year. I know from other threads that there are some real good savers on this board. So tell me, how do you all save so much cash every year? We already pack our lunches and we reduced our dinners out from 2x/week to 1x/week on average. I imagine reducing meat and alcohol consumption? What else? Does shopping at Aldi really make a difference in the bottom line when you account for the extra time to go there versus one-stop shopping?