Top money saving tip

What would be your top tip for saving money? What has worked for you? I'm looking to improve my saving methods and am wondering if there are any small (or big!) things I can add to my life to help me.

 

be able to distinguish what you need from what you want. And for now only purchase what you need. Hopefully this will open extra money that can go into your savings.

 

You're so right. Learning to cut back on things that we don't need or don't even use is a great way to save money. I know that one of the first things I did when hashing out a budget was look at all my expenses. I made a list of the must haves and the can do withouts. Then, I simply did without them. For example, I cut out magazine subscriptions. With so much free information available on the internet, why was I paying for magazine subscriptions. My suggestion is to take a look at your spending habits and come up with ideas for things you can do without. That's a good starting point.

 

Get out of debt as fast as you can. Hunker down and pay it off. Once you do, you will have the money to set up a fund which will eliminate the need for any more debt.

 

Eliminate things you don't need. As much as it killed us at first, we cut down on things like cell phone service, cable, and subscription services we weren't really using. There are two people in our household and both of us found a small extra stream of income that we both completely reserve for savings. Both of our incomes only net about $30-$50 a week, but they also don't take a ton of our time either. I thought it wouldn't add up fast, but it really does. We don't even miss the money since it is something we were used to living without to begin with.

 

Keeping money aside even if it is just small change helps a lot. What I have started to do is make sure that I do not have all my money on my credit card and always keep some money on my paypal account. That way I set myself a good limit and never end up having no money.
I am also a Freelance Translator and the money I receive for that is very irregular but it helps to have as an extra money just in case.
I definitely agree with the others about cutting back on stuff that you do not need. That is a very good point. we just cut down our mobile phone service provider because it is just way to expensive for e and my husband to use it and have to pay so much every month. We rather use that extra money and buy food, things that we really need.