You probably know a few good ways to save money. Finding out how to save money each month is one of the best ways to make the most of your paycheque. Lets look at a few money saving tips that have been posted here on Canadian Finance Blog.
How To Save Money Each Month
Start by looking to reduce your utility bills and other monthly bills. Here are some ways to save money on your electricity bill, gas bill and water bill. Two other services that have many opportunities to cut back include your cable bill and cell phone bill. Reducing these five bills could easily save you over $100 a month, more than $1,000 in a year.
With your bills whipped into shape, lets look at how to save money each month by reducing some other expenses. You can use these tips to save money on groceries or save money on gas.
How To Spend Less Each Year
There are many ways to save money on annual expenses as well. You might look to save money on a birthday party or save money on back to school shopping.
Then you also have gifts and entertaining for holidays. So make sure you save money on Christmas shopping and also save money on Valentine’s Day. Holidays should be about spending time with family and friends, not about going into debt!
How To Save While Travelling
Getting away for some time off isn’t always cheap. But with a little planning, you can save money on vacations and even get a few ideas to save money on car rentals. These tips will let you relax on your trip and not have to worry about spending too much.
I’m always looking for more ways to save money, do you any other money saving tips?
Ways To Save Money,Related Posts:
Tom Drake is the owner and head writer of Canadian Finance Blog.
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Good tips. Pack a lunch for work. It’s a huge money saver in and of itself your looking at about $125mth in savings from this alone..
I totally agree with you Tom. Packing a lunch for work saves money in both the short-term and the long-term. I have been packing lunch and saving money for years, while my co-workers have been buying lunch for years. In the long-term, their health from eating so much fast-food and unhealthy food choices has taken a toll and is now costing them even more money. Money they are spending to try to fix the health problems. I’ll take my packed lunch and good health any day.
I’m a lunch packer too. And I don’t go for coffee. Makes me somewhat antisocial, but I do go maybe once a week to keep in the loop
I was able to cut my monthly house and car insurance bill each month by over $50 by increasing my deductibles.
I started by eliminating the daily coffees, I now brew my own and bring via my thermos.
Do you mean coffee? You brew your own coffee? That’s new, but if you really spent that much on coffee that’s not a bad idea.
Totally agree! I have a kettle here at work, so now I’ve just found the instant coffee I like and that’s good enough! Coupled with swapping out the daily / every other day muffin from the local countrystyle to bulk nutrigrain bar purchases, I’ve managed to save over $100/month and have noticed some weight loss too! Crazy – $1200 / year on coffee.
And that’s just plain old coffee shop coffee. My sister-in-law is a starbucks addict – between her and her 2 kids – $600 / month on starbucks :S
I buy house hold products (paper products, laundry detergent etc) on sale and use coupons if I have coupons on the sale price. I started doing this 1.5 years ago and this hs reduced my weekly grocery $25.
I’m always impressed by all the ways people use to save money. I’m pretty frugal myself and a great way to keep track of my expenses is registering at Mint.com Canada (the same software company that makes QuickTax). They provide all sorts of services that allow you to keep an eye on all your income vs expenses, for free. It sounded fishy at first, but it seems to be working… Does anybody know anything more about this software? Please tell me if I’m getting hassled.
Anyways, thanks for the interesting piece Tom.
“Lets look at a few…”
Should be “let’s” meaning “let us”
Famous Chinese proverb – “The saving man becomes a free man.” So we must see all the options of saving the money without compromising our basic necessities. In that connection I really appreciate the money saving tips given in this Blog. Thanks for the mention.
Public transit saves a lot of money and although it’s not as fast as driving your own car, it’s easy to catch up on emails, the news, and blogging while en route.
Live by a subway station. That’ll make it faster, cheaper and you’ll still have time to multi task….
Oh not to mention, it’s a darn good investment. Its bound to appreciate in price faster on average.
Virata Gamany
Nice collection – I had to go read the one about saving on cable. We only started getting Satellite TV a couple of years ago and are already disappointed with the price vs the selection.
You suggested negotiating with the company, any tips on how to be a better negotiator?
threaten to cancel, based on your loyality with them. they’ll try to throw everything at you to get you to stay with them, and continue with there service. give it a shot, it wont hurt
This one works well, especially with your cable company! If you call them and say you are going to switch to their competitor because they are cheaper, they usually will cut your bill, sometimes in half and also offer other incentives such as premium channels. I have a friend who has done this twice and has had some premium channels for a year now!
Here’s one more – contact your credit card companies and ask them for a reduced interest rate. If you have a history of on-time payments they may very well do it to keep a good customer happy. What do you have to lose? Nothing, but you have plenty to potentially gain.
Apply creativity to your spending. It’s easy to go and buy something new, but it’s also the most expensive way to go. It takes thinking outside the box to come up with inspired solutions that don’t require money. Ask yourself, “Do I have to buy something new, or could I get creative with what I already have?” You could get together with your friends and start a babysitting co-op, or make “new” curtains from your favorite tablecloth.
A great way to save on vacations is to just stay close to home and have a “staycation”. There are usually a great many places nearby to which you can go on day trips and build your deposits in your memory bank. Do a Google search for “staycation” to get more ideas.
A great way to save money on vacations is to visit relatives. They want to see you and they pay for evertything
Over the last year I have started planning my meals for at least a week in advance which has saved money at the grocery store as I only buy what I need, no extras. Also try to avoid Costco and if I go there whatever I buy has to meet the criteria” Will I use this all within this month?”. Also have cut out buying Coffee at Starbucks, always try to plan ahead and bring a coffee from home with me. These two things have really helped us cut our family of 5 monthly spending.
we never go grocery shopping without a list. We shop at the same store every week and have made a price list of cost. our budget is $100/wk and with the price list we know exactly what we can get for that amount. There is no throwing extra in the cart or it sends us over our limit. It’s a fun challenge to “exchange” items on the list as we’re shopping if we come across something we forgot or just can’t do without that week.
Good Tips here. I pack a lunch daily, and find this a great money saver, I also limit myself to 1 coffee purchase per day. Always looking for some ways to save some money.
not ever what we plan rounding like we want
Thanks for the tips! Another thing you might want to try is paying your credit card bills more frequently. By paying your bill more then one time per billing cycle you end up paying less in interest.
My biggest problem area is traveling. I realize that proper planning will dramatically reduce the amount I spend during trips, but there are always things that come up along the way that are easy to forget during the planning process. I think my best bet is to take small steps, like leaving credit cards at the hotel room and only bringing enough cash for a few activities. This will keep my spending down but won’t get in the way of having fun at the same time.
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Ya i have also quit buying coffee. I know its all good, but starbucks coffee is just a rip off. I also never eat out, I always take my own lunch. I also save money from every purchase i make from my debit card. The change is always automatically transferred to my savings account. It adds up pretty quick!
thanks for the tips
When I travel, especially with the children, I always pack snacks, drinks, lunches and keep the kids full. This is one of the quickest ways to waste $50-$60 fast. We plan inexpensive day trips to things or free trips and pack a picnic, often small outside towns have zoos, water parks, and activities for a fraction of the price. We also rent all our movies free from the local library and the kids do weekly reading there and get free coupons for local attractions for reading. I always plan the grocery menu on the weekly flier savings and in addition use coupons if possible on the price match item. This all adds up quickly.
With the world economy still showing signs of weakness, saving is very important to survive in uncertain times
When I travel, I’ll bring an empty bottle for water and fill it at the airport. It saves $2 each time and with the amount that I travel, it adds up! I’ll also bring a granola bar to keep me from having to eat at the airport.
Saving money is now critical since our economy is not in a good condition right now. Hopefully this article will reach people and have a good understanding on how to save money.
We just updated our house to save money with energy consumption. Now that we are headed into winter, our newer windows will help save heating expenses. I think its time to get those summer house projects down since winter is just around the corner! Love the money saving ideas!
Another great way to save money is by taking advantage of group buying offers for things you’d already use. You can find all the group buys from Groupon, LivingSocial and the other top group buy websites at http://TheDealPages.com. You can browse the deals based on category and location so finding a good deal is easy
Do you mean coffee? You brew your own coffee? That’s new, but if you really spent that much on coffee that’s not a bad idea.
Nick,
Its all depends! You co-workers were sociallizing, exchanging ideas, building teams, enjoying themselves.
You can possibly start saving money on not going out at all and cancelling all vacations.
For example, I have been lunching with the boss for last year, even occassionally buying pizza for him.
Well, I ended up beeing promoted this year. All the money will be returned with some handsome profit.
I am not saying that pizza helped, but you have to value time, spending with other people.
Well articulated saving tips but like every tips it down to the household, firm and government to make the decision often they lack the will and wilt to cut spending and increase saving that what got everyone into this mess.
Great article. Buying coffee everyday added up in a hurry, so for my birthday my husband bought me a Tassimo coffee maker so that I can have my lattes and he can have his dark roast every morning and it costs us a fraction of the price (we work together!). We run our business like our home and are always looking for ways to reduce expenses and stream line efficiencies. Pennys may not be counted by many people now a days, but they add up in my book.
Great tips, but I believe taxes are the biggest expenses of a middle class person. I do agree that tax is the price one pays for living in a civilized society, but how much tax one pays must be optimized. There are a lot of people who live frugally cutting corners, but are not that careful when it comes to their annual tax planning exercise.
I have read a lot of tips and suggestions how to save and this post, I think, summarized everything. Just had a new motto in life, “Save more, spend less.”
How about taxes? They are the biggest expenses of a person. Why not consider optimize you taxes by proper planning?
Taking lunch to work will save you $35 or more a week. Also, like you said, phone and cable bills are pretty costly. Look for best deals… Great article.
Wow, I couldn’t help but be shocked at how much the commenter Scott said his sister spends on Starbucks each month, no offense intended! We save money by not buying junk food for our 4 kids, because three of them are teenagers and would eat it all within a day, not to mention its unhealthy. They have to snack on cheese and fruit, aren’t we mean? We shop at wholesale clubs for paper products like toilet paper, etc. but we have found that we can buy our meat from a local meat market for less, and the fruits/veggies from a farmer’s market for the same price, and they are fresher. Thanks for the saving advice.
My biggest thing is bringing a lunch to work. I have done the math on it and it could easily save me $300 a month. Laziness, however, gets in the way of that.
On my way to work I see so many people carrying their Coffee bought from some well known coffee chains. Not buying these coffees would save loads. There are of course many other ways to save money. Do you really need that new phone? If not go to a sim only deal. Need the big tv? Need the holiday? Of course none of these things are needed…
I work part time and my husband works full time….so obviously he makes more money….when he get’s his pay check i automatically go on line and put money on our utility bills….50-100$.Even if the bill is not due. This way when the bill comes in it’s usually enough and has already been paid…it seems to be easier to plan and since we have the money in our account it seems like the smart thing to pay it early so at the end of the month there is no need to worry about these payments.
Stop smoking can really save me money not only on buying cigarettes but also for maintaining good health. Aside from that, I also save money by paying my utility bills, broadband services and credit card through my UnionBank online banking services using my Unionbank EON Cyber Account. I like to share how I did it in this post: http://www.earlyretirementinvestments.com/how-to-save-money-every-month-using-unionbank-online-banking-services/. In the end, I learned that working to earn money towards financial independence will not work without a plan on how to save money and acting on it.