We’re all feeling the pinch right now as everything seems to have shot up in price. Fuel prices are through the roof, and even simple grocery items seem to have gone up. If you’re trying to save in this current climate, it’s hard.
My daughter is currently saving for a mortgage, and we recently sat down to see how we could squeeze more out of her monthly earnings to go into the pot. It was actually quite illuminating and well worth doing.
With just a few tweaks, we have her on a savings plan that should see her save $6,000 in about six months. Now I’m not saying it will all be easy and that she won’t need to make adjustments, but it’s not going to be the frugal lifestyle she thought it would be.
9 Ways To Save Money Fast
Don’t panic, this isn’t a list that sees you cutting all the good things out of your life, more a list that shows you how to optimize everything you have.
The target works out to a bit over $33 a day. Break it down like that, and it stops feeling like a mountain. Most of the money you’re looking for is already leaving your account; you just haven’t found where yet.
1. Optimize Your Energy Bills
Utility bills are one of those things you set up when you move in and then forget about for years. That’s exactly why they’re a good place to start.
My daughter hadn’t looked at her tariff since the day she signed the rental contract, and when we compared it to what was on offer elsewhere, she was paying roughly 15% more than she needed to. A single afternoon on comparison sites sorted it.
After the tariff, look at how the house actually uses power. A programmable thermostat that drops the temperature when nobody’s home can shave 10 to 15% off heating and cooling.
LED bulbs use about 75% less power than the old incandescent ones and last around 25 times longer.
Weatherstripping around drafty doors and a bead of caulk around the worst windows cuts another 5 to 10%.
The last one is the phantom load. Televisions, game consoles, coffee makers, chargers all pull a trickle of power even when you’re not using them. A few power strips you can switch off at night handle it.
Between the new tariff and the tweaks around the house, we’re expecting her to knock $60 to $80 a month off her bills. Call it $400 across six months.
2. Audit Your Subscriptions
When we opened her bank statements for the last six months and reviewed them line by line, we found 16 active subscriptions.
Two streaming services she hadn’t opened since Christmas, a meditation app from a New Year’s resolution that didn’t take, a gym she’d used twice, a cloud storage plan she’d forgotten upgrading, and a magazine bundle that came with something else renewed at full price after the trial.
The average American household has more than a dozen active subscriptions. Apps like Rocket Money will scan your accounts and list them for you if you don’t fancy doing it by hand, but a highlighter and a printed statement work just as well.
The rule we used was simple: if she hadn’t touched it in the last 60 days, it went. Her subscription bill dropped by about $140 a month.
3. Automate Your Savings
Trying to save whatever is left at the end of the month is never going to get you anywhere fast because there is never anything left. A friend has a birthday, the car needs something, you go away for a weekend, and the leftover pot is always suspiciously close to zero.
The trick is to move the money the day you get paid, before you see it in your checking account. Set up a standing transfer that goes out on payday into a separate high-yield savings account, ideally one at a different bank so it feels a bit less accessible.
Many online savings accounts are paying around 4% APY right now, which is a solid return compared to the 0.01% most checking accounts offer. Over six months on a growing balance, that interest is a nice little top-up on its own.
Start with a number you’re sure you can handle, even if it’s only $50 a month, and raise it after each of the other changes on this list kicks in. Every time you free up cash elsewhere, bump the auto-transfer up by that amount.
4. Smarter Grocery Shopping
Groceries are the second biggest household expense for most people, and they’re where the leaks are hardest to see because you have to eat. The average American household spends around $500 a month on food, and plenty spend twice that.
With a bit of planning, you can knock 25 to 30% off without eating worse.
Plan meals for the week ahead. Look at what’s already in the fridge and pantry, build meals around it, then write a proper list. Go to the store with the list and buy what’s on it.
That single habit is what saves the 25% because it stops the aimless wandering that ends up with $40 worth of stuff you didn’t plan to buy.
Store-brand items are usually made in the same factories as name-brand items, sometimes on the same production line, and cost 20 to 25% less. Once you’ve done a blind taste test of your own on a few staples, you’ll stop paying extra for the label.
Cash-back apps like Ibotta, plus your store’s loyalty program, will return another 5 to 15% on things you were buying anyway.
Buying non-perishables in bulk, such as toilet paper, laundry soap, canned tomatoes, pasta, rice, works out cheaper per unit if you have somewhere to put them.
5. Cut Your Transport Costs
After rent and food, getting around is usually the third-biggest thing eating your paycheck, and it’s the one people look at last. Between gas, insurance, and the occasional garage bill, my daughter was spending close to $450 a month on her car.
Insurance was the biggest single win. She hadn’t shopped her policy in three years and rates had climbed hard during that time. Getting quotes from four different insurers took an evening and saved her $32 a month, which is nearly $400 over the year. While we were at it, we bumped her deductible slightly, which knocked a bit more off.
Gas came next: keeping the tires properly inflated, not flooring it away from every light, and combining errands into one trip instead of three separate drives can improve fuel economy by 10 to 40%, depending on how heavy your foot is.
Regular oil changes and a fresh air filter keep the car running efficiently and stop small problems from turning into $800 repair bills.
If you’re near decent public transit, using it two or three days a week rather than driving every day makes a real dent. Carpooling with a coworker, even one day a week, means one fewer tank of gas over the month.
For people in cities who don’t drive daily, car-sharing services like Zipcar can actually work out cheaper than owning outright once you factor in insurance, parking, and maintenance.
Between shopping for insurance and better driving habits, we’re expecting her to save around $80 a month here, or roughly $480 over six months.
6. Create a Second Income Stream
Cutting only gets you so far. At some point, if you want to hit a number like $6,000 in six months, you need a bit more coming in. The good news is you don’t need a whole new career, just a few hours a week of something you can actually stick with.
DoorDash, Instacart, and similar apps let you work when it suits you, and 10 hours a week will usually bring in $200 to $400 a month, depending on your area.
If you’ve got a skill that translates online, freelancing on Upwork or Fiverr, writing, design, tutoring, admin, and social media tends to pay better per hour, and you can do it in your pajamas.
My daughter picked up a small freelance writing contract through someone she used to work with, which brings in around $300 a month for about 5 hours of work.
The fastest cash, though, comes from selling stuff you already own and don’t use. Old electronics, exercise gear that’s been holding up a laundry pile for two years, clothes that no longer fit, that camera you bought for one vacation.
A weekend of Facebook Marketplace and eBay listings brought her about $340 in one go. It’s a one-off payment rather than monthly income, but it goes straight into the savings account and gives you a head start toward your target.
7. Take Advantage of Credit Card Rewards
Credit cards have a reputation, and it’s mostly earned. Used badly, they’re a very fast way to go backward. Used properly, they’re a small but real boost to your savings, and it would be silly not to use them.
The rule is to put only things on the card that you were going to buy anyway, and to pay the balance in full every month. If you can’t do that second bit, skip this one entirely, because the interest will eat any rewards and then some.
Assuming you can, a good cash-back card on groceries, gas, and utilities will typically return 2 to 5% depending on the category. If my daughter’s household spends around $700 a month between food, fuel, and bills on the card, even a modest 2% average return is $168 a year straight back into the savings account.
Some cards offer sign-up bonuses worth $200 or more if you spend a certain amount in the first few months on things you’d already be spending on. That’s real money for changing which piece of plastic you swipe.
Just don’t get seduced into carrying five cards and chasing every offer; that’s how the whole thing falls apart. One good cash-back card, used for planned purchases, paid off in full on the due date.
8. Get Creative With Entertainment
This is the part where most saving plans go wrong. People decide they’ll cut out fun because that’s the thing that’s costing them the most. Those people last three weeks, then blow $200 on a night out because they’ve felt deprived.
A lot of what we pay for in entertainment we could get free or nearly free if we looked. Public libraries lend out ebooks and audiobooks through apps like Libby, so the Kindle bill drops to zero.
Most cities have free museum days, outdoor concerts in summer, and community events that are excellent but never get advertised well.
Instead of eating out at a restaurant with friends, why not host a dinner party where everyone brings a course. It’s a lot of fun, and it dramatically cuts hosting costs. We do this all the time and love it.
For the things you do want to pay for, be strategic. Matinee movie tickets are often half the price of evening ones. Restaurants have lunch menus that are two-thirds the cost of the same food at dinner. Happy hour exists for a reason.