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Ignore the big price label you see on bread, coffee and other food items. Look for the small number in the corner that says €/kg. That’s the only number that really matters in the long run.
If you have only 15 € in your pocket, and you need to survive till the end of the month, this tip might not be very helpful, since you also need to be aware of the sum you pay at the checkout.
A bargain is still spending money.
That's a thought terminating cliche.
Frugal people know that sometimes an outlay of money in the short term leads to long-term savings.
But someone struggling with fiscal responsible can imply value on something they don't need because it can be achieved at lower cost, ignoring that they don't need the item, they just feel the value is there. I don't disagree with your summary but this is aimed at people struggling with their spending, not people who know better.
Learn to cook from raw or whole ingredients.
The amount we pay for processed bullshit that makes us sick is mind-boggling, we're talking like a factor of 10 to 1 almost.
And before you come at me, I meticulously budget my food, I make everything from scratch
Just as one example, frozen pizza. The absolute cheapest, worst piece of shit you can get in my area would be about $6 on sale. Compare that to making homemade crusts, sauce, and topping it myself for around 75 cents per pizza.
Many people use the excuse that they don't have time. Funny how they have time to go to work for 2 hours and earn $40 that they can just pay to Skip the Dishes, but don't have half an hour to make some homemade spaghetti.
Home cooked meals are why I can afford to be a housewife!
My partner and I only bring in around 48k/yr and thanks to cooking from scratch for everything its totally a reasonable amount!
I make a loaf of multigrain sourdough every week for our breakfast egg, onion, jalapeno, sandwiches, egg prices included that's 12 a week for breakfast at the highest. Dinners we use whatever produce is in season, stews and casseroles are most common. We usually end up at around 40/week for dinners.
Add that to the fact that I'm a nerd who can selfhost out services (I run a jellyfin server with all of my physical media backed up to it, so its my Netflix and my Spotify, and idc about piracy so I rip stuff I get from the library too) and were also spending only electricity on media every month... Usually.
Edit: spelling
See, you get it.
There is so much money savings to be had by making your own food that I will literally work less so I have more time to cook. It saves that much money.
I've heard every fake excuse in the book from people who are basically just too lazy.
They claim it takes too much time, that is objective bullshit.
They claim it's too difficult, that is objective bullshit.
They claim they are in a food desert. Would never occur to them to just take a taxi to the store and buy groceries if really it's that difficult to get around. Once again, objective bullshit excuse.
They find nitpick bullshit self-satisfying ways to deny they should have to cook like suggesting that making fresh dough everyday is too much work... Right because the thing to do is make dough every day, not once a month and just freeze blobs.
Lazy, lazy, self-slaving people.
Track your spending and expenses. Even if you don’t plan to change your spending habits at first, I’d say it’s pretty hard not to once you see where all your money is actually going.
Beyond that - and while it’s not exactly a “saving” tip - I’d argue that investing is the biggest lever you can pull when it comes to growing your wealth. I’m a blue-collar worker, and while I do okay for myself, I’m by no means rich. But the money I’ve put aside from my wages and invested now pays me passive income each year that roughly equals two months’ worth of income. That’s money I don’t have to work for.
I’d seriously struggle to save that much each year through budgeting alone - especially since I’ve already picked all the low-hanging fruit when it comes to frugal living.
How do you suggest one start with investing?
ETF index funds that are heavily diversified across both sectors and geographic regions are a great place to start - just make sure the total expense ratio stays below something like 0.3%.
Personally, I’ve set mine to automatically invest €500 each month, regardless of what the market is doing. I never try to time it - I just keep buying and never sell. The ones I'm personally buying are iShares EUNL and IS3N with 80/20 distribution.
I'm kind of obsessed with money because I got traumatized from a time where having 30€ more could mean eating for another week
Uff you know what get's you tons of experience, if you have to eat plain rice and water at the end of November/December. It takes only one real broke experience to know how to spend next year better. And gradually saving recources with everything you do becomes an obsession. 😁
A lot of people avoid credit cards, but if you get one that has good "cash back" rewards and only use it for stuff you're already buying anyway then you basically get a discount on everything.
I have a PayPal card that is like 1.5%-3% back on everything so I just do all my normal purchases on there, even insurance payments and stuff, then pay it all off as soon as I'm "allowed" to. I basically get a few hundred dollars a year back from stuff I'd be buying no matter what.
Just be careful of your cards maximum... I literally just learned this the hard way this week... I did all my normal shopping/payments like I always do, but I also rebuilt my computer so I ended up using 50% of my available credit and lost 20 fucking points off my credit score for it!!! Such a scam system lol
Cue all the whining.
Credit cards are an amazing tool, and one of the best things that people don't realize is almost every single credit card gives you 90 days loss damage theft protection, and an extra year warranty on top of whatever the manufacturer gives you.
This has literally saved me tens of thousands of dollars over the last three decades.
I got two brand new laptops because they both died around the 2 to 3 year point, and the extra year of CC warranty carried the coverage over. With no replacement parts available, they were required to give brand new laptops with new warranty. That's just one example of many. My brother smashed a TV when we were setting it up... Invoked the 90 dat damage protection and got a "free" TV.
A lot of cards have other fringe perks like insurance on rental cars, for example. Absolutely worth flipping through your benefits package sometime.
YES! I had forgotten about that one! My current policy has basically "permanent rental insurance". Woah, thanks for the reminder to literally browse my benefits package again.
That system only exists because it's profitable for PayPal. Enough people can't manage paying it off fast enough. And the spying on purchase habits but that's unavoidable with any card. Just be honest with yourself before you start trying to farm credit card perks.
lost 20 fucking points off my credit score
Those points come right back next month when you pay off the card and the agency sees a lower credit utilization. Nothing to fret about.
Ahh awesome! You spend so much time "being good" for the score to barely move and then seeing this sudden drop killed me. Thanks for letting me know!
Track your spending. It's insane how obvious that might sound, but having all your outgoings over a month laid out in front of you can make it really clear where there might be savings to be made. I used to pick up a pack of biltong and an energy drink before work every weekday - it was only £3 every morning. However, that's £63 a month right there.
Other than that; see if you can change your routine or mindset in some way to allow savings. I've started waking up earlier so I can walk to work, and not being so anxious to get home early so I can enjoy the walk home a bit more - I'm lucky to live within three miles from my office, and to be able-bodied (and have the area be walkable etc.) but it saves me about £150 a month on train tickets, at the cost of walking about 2 hours a day.
Before you buy something, take a look at all the useless junk you've accumulated over the years and now need to get rid of. After that, ask yourself: did it ever give you what you were really looking for?
Make lists and use them to think twice before purchasing anything.
I started making lists of stuff I wanted to buy instead of, well, buying it whenever I thought about it and and it worked great to teach me to differentiate between what I need and what I waaaaant ;)
I got a twist for the fellas! Look at women's clothes at the thrift. There's far more variety than in the men's section and it's stupid cheap. Also, if you're non-fat, women's tops tend to cut in subtly at the waist, trés chic. Imagine, clothes that don't look like they used a whiskey barrel for a mannequin.
A good chunk of my shoes are from the female section. Got several jackets and other winter tops that look dead sexy. Used to pay way too much for white linen to wear at the beach or river. Here's the top I wore yesterday. (Boat's too small for 4, even though we're all tiny. Kids took turns getting towed.) Pulled two white tops at the thrift and my wife was shaking her head, "No! Those are for girls!" Yesterday she thought I looked hot and tried to give me told-you-so that the tops would look great on me. Whatever.
Here's one of those tops with a woman's vest, $4 for both. Just noticed, that's a woman's watch, $2 plus a new battery. Wish I had more pics handy, but you get the idea.
CAVEAT: The buttons and zippers are ass backwards.
Shirts and shoes are pretty much the only women's things I don't bother with as they're the only ones that are sized/cut in ways that don't feel comfortable/fit on me. I've never found women's shoes big enough for my men size 13 feet and shirts have too much material in the front that makes the whole thing hang weirdly.
The shoe thing annoys me so much because the ONLY shoes for men seem to be white, black or brown in 3 flavors of style (work boot, loafer, or sneaker). Meanwhile the women's shoe section is 3 times bigger and has all kinds of cool shit too small for my feet.
Put bread in the fridge. It lasts much longer. You can also freeze bread and cheeses for even longer storage.
Expiration dates on most foods don’t mean much. Your salt isn’t bad just because you owned it for a year. Just pay more attention to the food after the date.
I freeze mine. I live alone so it would just go mouldy anyway, but this way my breads always fredh
Extending this tip further: a lot of things turn out fairly decent when frozen and then unfrozen. Cooked rice, raw homemade pasta, diced vegs (onions, peppers, carrots), citrus juice, cooked beans, stews and pilafs in general. So if you have the available freezer space it's worth to hide some leftovers there, for an "I got no money and no time but I need to eat!" sort of meal.
Just don't freeze potatoes. They get spongy.
Freezing diced veggies was a game-changer for me. Sometimes I just want to get it all done at once so I don't have to pull out the board and wash everything every time.
It's like I'm a sous chef for future me.
You should not refrigerate bread because it ruins it via the process of starch retrogradation (re-crystallization).
It is far better to plan your bread usage and store it in plastic at room temperature, or freeze it.
Very much agree on the expiration! Those are more a notification to the store when to get them off the shelves... There's tons of wiggle room! Things like cheese will last forever anyways or can be frozen, sour cream stored at the back of the fridge to extend the life. Lots of money-saving there!
Write down every single thing you buy before you buy it. Name and price. It gets your rational mind to engage and many times, I change my mind because I realize I don't need the thing and maybe don't even want it.
I'll focus on food money saving tips. Don't follow them blindly, check if they apply or not to where you live (it varies quite a bit). It all boils down "buy cheaper, when cheaper, and use it well".
These are great tips thanks 😊
Wear 2 sweaters instead of turning up the heat when it's chilly.
Keep in mind you pay extra for convenience in many situations. It was said here before, but home cooking is the prime example.
Speaking of which, buy the stuff you use a lot off cheap, buy the expensive stuff only if you use it in small amounts. Example: I'm really into curry, so I use a lot of carrots and potatoes, the cheapest veggies here, but that alone is a bit bland. So i use moderate portions of whatever hearty veggies are in season (sweet potato, zucchini, pumpkin, eggplant). There's also this really good curry paste I like, and I didn't even bother comparing its price since I know I will need to buy a new one in half a year at the earliest.
As a consequence of that rule, skip on meat. Too expensive and too big portions. Even if you still want to celebrate the end of a week/month with it, you really need to learn some veggie recipes for the work week.
I find rice to be the perfect balance between work-intensive potatoes and pricey -in- comparison pasta. So I of course use literal 10s of kilos of it and don't buy the minute rice (again, surcharge for convenience), but from the local Asia mart for cheap.