22 Money Saving Ideas you should implement

22 Money Saving Ideas you should implement22 Money Saving Ideas you should implement

When you want to create wealth and build assets, there are only two options available for you. Either you increase your income or reduce your expenses. With this approach you would get extra money and such money can be invested in good investment options and your money can be grown. While you need to work very hard to increase your income, coming to reducing the expenses, it is in your hands. What is that you can do to reduce the expenses and increase the savings? Following are 22 money saving ideas which would help you to save money. All of them may or may not be applicable for you.

Money saving ideas – regular expenses

  1. Spend on your groceries within the planned budget: People think that it is very easy to say, but difficult to implement. When you start practicing this, you would love to continue this plan.  Prepare the list of items you want to buy and stick to that. Revise this list every month based on your need.
  2. Prefer buying them at shopping malls for discounted rates: While it may not be true always for all purchases, you would definitely get good discount when you buy your purchases from shopping malls.
  3. Save money on medicines: I prefer using “Apollo Pharmacy” for our medicines as we get 10% discount straight away. You can try for any such similar discounts being offered by chemists and reduce expenses
  4. Dinner/Lunch at discounted price: Every one of us would go to lunch or dinner during weekend. Have you tried checking the offers where the restaurants are offering good discount prices? There are various offers at dealsandyou.com/Restaurant-Deals, snapdeal.com etc.

Monthly saving ideas – Are you using festival season’s offers

  1. Festival season offers: There are several offers during festival season. Sometimes, we may feel it might be genuine, sometimes not. Encash the festival season offers wherever you feel they are genuine discounts. Currently all retail stores are offering discounts throughout the year instead of during festival seasons.
  2. Buying clothes: Buy clothes after you clean your wardrobe. This is one of the good ways of planning.
  3. Sell unwanted stuff at e-bay: Spend one week at home and clean-up all unwanted stuff. You can sell them at www.e-bay.com and get some extra money. This extra money may not be big, but such unwanted stuff cleaning would help you to know what you need and what you do not need. You can avoid cases where you end up buying which you already have.

Money saving ideas – Are you controlling your shopping budget?

  1. Control expenses while you do shopping: Make a list of shopping and strict to this list to buy items. There are several ways to control your expenses while shopping.
  2. Say “No” to what you do not need: Make a habit of saying “no” to extra or more stuff. Ask yourself, “Do I need this” twice before buying anything. This is a powerful weapon to save money which I am using it for the past 2 years.

Monthly saving ideas –Save money on online transactions.

  1. Online discount offers: There are several good online shopping portals where you can save money. These online shopping portals are offering great discounts with several good features like delivery on cash, 30 days money back guarantee, return goods if you are not satisfied. Recent survey conducted in India shows that the online shopping has increased by xx % in last 2 years. Some of the good portals are flipkart.com, shopping.indiatimes.com, snapdeal.com, buytheprice.com etc.
  2. Check Insurances rates online: There are several portals which are available to know the insurance quotes based on age, tenure and insurance amount you want to take. Check the latest insurances details at good sites like www.policybazaar.com etc.  The insurance can be life insurance, car insurance, medical insurance etc.,

Money saving ideas – How health conscious you are?

  1. Lock your car in the weekend: In the weekends I try to keep my car locked. Making a habit of walking for shorter distances not only saves fuel, but it also keeps us healthy and fit.
  2. Take organic food and fruits: Do you take organic food  or do you go out in the weekend and spend money and have junk food and spoiling your health? Eating fruits not only keeps you healthy, but saves money.

Money saving ideas – Free up your debt or avoid unnecessary charges on your credit card

  1. Free up your loans: If you have an option, free up your loans to maximum extent. If you are trying to save money and invest in investment options where you are getting lower returns than what you are paying, it is better to pay back your loan instead of paying higher interest.
  2. Use credit card which is charge-free: Buy a credit card where there is no surcharge (extra charge for using the credit card at fuel stations) for using it for gas/fuel. I use Citibank Indian oil credit card where I save a few hundred rupees without any additional effort.

Money saving ideas – Reduce your luxury spending

  1. Buy used one: If you go for a new one to buy you need to spend more money. E.G. you can buy used car. Currently there is very good demand for such used goods.
  2. Go on bike instead of car: In case you are going for smaller distances and cannot go by walk, avoid going by car and instead use bike. You could save lot of fuel.
  3. Reduce your car expenses: How about switching off the A/c of your car to most of the extent. This may be painful in initial times, but if you adopt, you could save 25% of your fuel expenses.

Money saving ideas – Use “fun” at home.

  1. Fun at home: Check for various ways of having fun at home. You could save lot of money by making this as a habit as would be spending time at home with zero cost.
  2. Live in smaller house: Have you observed that living in smaller house saves money. It can be in terms of maintenance charges, energy bills, furniture costs etc.

Money saving ideas which your kids can help you

  1. Save money in power bills: We used to get the Energy bills/Electricity bills for Rs 500+ per month. I educated my family on “use when you need”. Switch off the electrical items when you do not need.  I surprise that why we could not do this all along. We had savings of 30% once we disciplined ourselves and started using the concept. Another tip is “unplug your electronics” during night time completely (except your refrigerator).  Even though you are not using them, as the electronics are plugged, it would consume some amount of energy. You can save that too. See our article on various ways to on electricity bills

Money saving ideas – Your disciplined life style can save money

  1. Plan your travel early: Make the travel bookings early and reduce the travel cost. In case you rush for last minute bookings, you need to pay higher rates.

Conclusion: The above is not comprehensive list and you can add. Adopting these money saving ideas could save money and can add to your wealth.

Readers, what other money saving tips are you implementing?

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Suresh
Money Saving Ideas you should implement

Suresh KP

4 comments

  1. Hi Suresh

    I am a 20 year old student and I have been working part time for sometime and have saved around Rs. 20000.

    I wanted to invest this money and all my future earnings for good returns so that I can study abroad in a year or two.

  2. Good info. My suggestions are for day to day basis:

    1) if you stay in a city where public transport is good , opt for that. Start early from home so that u reach on time.

    2) Always carry tiffin/lunch from home. Home cooked food is always better than Canteen/hotel/roadside  food.

    3) Many are avid readers. Try to swap books/novels between your group. In short , find ppl with similar interest and swap and save money.

    4) try to do maximum things by your own. If we take help for some/any/all service.. And yes not on cost of ur health.

    5) Always keep your eyes and ears open . It may save u 100s of bucks monthly. Always opt for deals on day to day requirements.  I have taken yearly subscription of news paper which costs me 249 for a year.

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