One of the best way to come in under budget each month is to not only reduce impulse and unnecessary expenses, but to also reduce necessary monthly expenses as well.  If your monthly food budget is say $500, if you find a way to come in at $400 instead, you can use that $100 to invest that will grow considerably more over time instead of whatever you were going to buy in its place.  With just a few tweaks in the purchases we may, we can go from spending money on overpriced items to save money each month.

Movie Theatre Snacks

Going to the movies is expensive enough, but I guess if you’re looking for something to do on a date night, then under $25 isn’t too bad for tickets, but once you start throwing in snacks and drinks, let alone alcohol, is where your night can get expensive pretty quickly.  Especially if you are bringing the entire family to the movies, you could be looking at $100 in tickets and snacks just for seeing what will probably be a mediocre movie otherwise.  It may be worth it to order a movie on-demand at home or on one of the many streaming services, and have your own food and snacks at home.

Cosmetics

My wife tried her hand in the cosmetic “pyramid scheme” for a while, when she tried selling cosmetics on the side.  While she actually was very good, there is limited growth and unrealistic sales goals in order to actually make any money, but what I did notice was the ridiculous markup of the product compared to what she should buy it for to what she was selling, and anywhere in between based upon the many levels of selling and what you can earn of each product.

Pre-Cut Produce

Sure, you get what you pay for, and that is definitely true when it comes to time equals money.  Cutting up fruits and veggies when you get home from the grocery store can be a task in itself in addition to washing, so it makes sense that we would want to buy already cut up produce.  The problem is, you will pay likely at least quadruple the price, so you have to ask yourself if it worth it to save a few minutes cutting when it adds up to real savings by just buying produce as it is.

Gift Wrapping/Bag/Card

It’s actually surprising how much money you can save on greeting cards, gift bags, wrapping, and tissue paper by skipping the normal drugstores and departments stores and going straight to the dollar store.  At running around $6 per greeting card anywhere else, you can probably stock up on everything you need to wrap gifts for the same price, which shows you how much of a markup goes into it, not to mention how little that those things actually matter when it comes to giving gifts.  You’re lucky if the card is even saved, but everything else goes straight into the trash besides the gift.

As our children get older we are focused so much about protecting them for the safety, but what about their financial safety as well?  One day they will start to make their own money, own homes, get married, and hopefully live financially responsible without making bad financial decisions like missing payments, going to debt, or excessive spending, so it is up to us to teach kids about money as early as possible so they can not only take financial responsibilities seriously, but to make the right decisions.

Live Within Your Means

The simple reason that we go into debt is that we are spending much more than what is coming in, so it is important to teach the importance of living within our means of what we can afford.  Each family’s situation is different, but we want to stress the importance of appreciating what you have, and also giving to those less fortunate as well.  Teaching the fundamentals of a budget could be a great way to ensure that you spend what you can afford by allocating certain funds and not going over budget and pulling from other areas or backing with a credit card.

Stay Organized

Organization is key when it comes to handling the household finances, keeping track of not only which bills are due when and how much, but making sure you can continue to afford.  Eliminating unnecessary purchases is a great way to free up extra money each month, and a way to ensure is to making a shopping list prior to leaving the house, and sticking to that list while at the store.  It will make your trip more organized by looking for what is on your list, as well as not having your budget thrown off by extra purchases (and even forgetting items you went to get in the first place).

Find the Best Deal

If we were to price match when I was a kid, it would entail driving across town to store to store to look at the best deal, so by the time you factor in your time and gas prices, was it even worth it.  With online shopping at our finger tips, you can price compare from site to site and have the best deal out there within minutes, whereas before it could have taken all day driving around.  Only problem with online shopping is there is so much, and it never clothes, so willpower needs to be key.

It’s Ok to Seek Help

We as adults may think we have all the answers, but we still don’t, so no matter what age you are at, it’s always good to consult a family or friend that you trust to divulge some financial tips, as well as a professional as well.  If you are having money troubles, spending beyond your means, and falling into debt, waiting will only make it worse, so it’s good to keep someone in the loop that you can even bounce ideas off, or to make sure you’re following the correct path.

There’s a difference between being frugal and being cheap.  Even being frugal has its quirks where it could be easy to be made fun of when it comes to spending money, or lack of, as well as re-using items that you probably should throw away, but being cheap is just a whole other level.  I’ve been around cheap people in my life and I told myself I would never be that way, so look out for signs that you might be a little too cheap.

Suffering Without Air Conditioning

August is really the hottest part of the summer, so if you having turned on the air conditioning yet, then you are no doubt suffering, as well as anyone who unfortunately has to share the house with you.  Yes, it makes sense to turn the temperature up while you are at work, but at night if it’s not cool enough outside to open the windows, then for sleeping sake, turn on the air conditioning, as the ceiling fan in itself cannot keep the sweat from pouring off of you all night.  Once the fall hits, you can give the A/C a break.

Shorting on a Tip

Now unless you really have received poor service, at which even then I have trouble holding back on a tip, but I have received terrible service where I did have to miss filling in the tip line, but as a rule of thumb you should always leave at least 20% off of your bill, not to mention throwing a few bucks to the carryout person for your order (as long as the order is right!).  You can tell the friends that don’t tip when you are out with a group and have to rely on other to pitch in a few more bucks to make up for it.

Dodging a Round of Drinks

Now shorting a few bucks for a tip is one thing, but if you’re out with a group of friends and you are trading off buying rounds, you may have that friend that always seems to be in the bathroom or hiding in the background when it’s their turn to buy a round.  You don’t need to buy everyone a round of shots, but if you are drinking other people’s drinks that they ordered for you, then it’s only fair to return the favor and not cheap out.

Grass Looks Like the Desert

It actually doesn’t make financial sense to water your grass in the middle of the day due to drying up more quickly, and actually advised to water in the morning or at night after the sun is down, but if you see someone’s lawn completely dried up it makes you wonder if they are lazy, or cheap.  Certainly, your water bill will increase in the summer due to having to water, but as long as your watering is not out of control, you can still water and at least keep a smidge of green in your grass to last the rest of the year, unless you’re banking on it coming back in the fall as temperatures drop and rain may increase.

Before you grab your shopping cart and start going aimlessly up and down each aisle, it is good to go in with a plan.  The grocery store can be an overwhelming place.  There are seemingly endless places to go and get lost within the fresh, frozen, and beer aisles, wondering what you even came in for in the first place.  That is why you always hear of people running in for a couple items like milk and eggs and coming out with a whole cart full of groceries that will probably hurt your bank account, not to mention your waistline.

Stick to a List

If you go in with a few things on your mind you are doomed from the start.  There are so many places to have impulse purchases, especially if there are free samples given out, making you want to keep adding to your cart.  Since the store is large, in order to keep your head down and focus on a list, you can set up your grocery list in parts such as fruits & veggies, canned, frozen, household items, so that at least you can find everything in roughly the same spot so that you do not have to go on a search and get lost in temptation.

Never Go on an Empty Stomach

It would be wise to eat before you head out to the grocery store, a full meal at best, so that you have a clear mind when you get there and can just stick to your shopping list.  If you have gone grocery when you were hungry before, you will know that you probably came home with plenty of unhealthy and expensive impulse purchases that you either scarfed down, or threw out because you didn’t eat after that one time.  Believe me, you’ll thank yourself later.

Use the Rewards Card

Like most major grocers, there is a shopper’s reward card that you can plug in your phone number at the register that is associated to the account and you can see the savings start to take away from the balance.  In addition to the sale items exclusive to your rewards card, you can also load digital coupons to your card from the store’s website (although you may have to print off the list so you remember what you put on there).  Also, just by using you can build up fuel points that will take money off each gallon of gas when redeemed.

Avoid the Weekend Rush

Grocers know that the weekends are going to be packed, so why give any extra incentive.  During the week, you can likely find more promo sales that you will not see on the weekend.  Not only can you save additional money during the week, but you can also save the stress on yourself but avoiding the crowd, in the parking lot, and in the store, and especially if you can go in the evening after dinner, you will hardly see anyone and can get in and out with little delay.

Having a baby can be (and is, for that matter), stressful.  The crying baby in the picture was my first thought to start off this article as that what it seems to consume my life with now, having a newborn a few weeks ago.  So, while we adjust to our new family member, it is another mouth to feed and more expenses that will occur that will need to be accounted for.  Much like everything else in life, we try to save money the best we can, so same goes with having a newborn.

Clip Coupons!

It is suggested to clip coupons when you are grocery shopping, so why wouldn’t you do the same when it came for baby necessities.  You find formula coupons that will help to ease the burden if you are having trouble with breast milk.  One thing I have noticed is that Bed Bath & Beyond and Buy Buy Baby are owned by the same company, so they accept BB&B coupons at BBB, so that is nice, when if you are like me, receive them in my email or mail just about every day.

Seek Hand-Me-Down’s

Whether some friends and family stopped at one being enough, or maybe have another child not being the same gender and needing to clean house a bit as things get outdate and less need, you can probably get great hand-me-down items from those you are close to that can save a ton of money then having to buy your own.  We have neighbors stopping by giving us their old toys and accessories, so most are probably happy to not only free up some space in their home, but to also have their items to go be loved by the next.

Return Items from Baby Shower

Now this may sound like a selfish thing to do, but I’m not talking about taking the generous gifts you received from friends and relatives and turning them into cash, but there are always those few people that decide to buy something that is not on your registry because they think it is “cute”, and we all know that we don’t have the same taste as everyone else.  Hopefully the random gifts they got you were at least from the store you registered at, or a popular store with an easy return policy.

Luck Out with a Diaper Party

While a baby shower is typically for women (although the new trend is for couple’s showers), one of the popular events now for the father to be is to have a diaper party, usually planned by a best friend or close family member.  You can get the guys together for a night on the town, sort of like a bachelor party of sorts, with the only admission to the party is a case of diapers.  With most having kids by now, those are happy to pay with diapers for a much-needed night out, and those without kids are just happy to have all of their friends out at the same time.

It is hard to save nowadays with virtually any impulse purchase you have at your fingertips being able to shop online and buy with a click of a button.  Before you hit “submit”, try and avoid some of the biggest unnecessary purchases that you can make.

Four-Course Restaurant Meals

Unless it is a once a year special occasion, there is no reason to splurge this much on a dinner.  For one, having an appetizer, salad, entrée, dessert is not healthy, it is also a huge strain on your wallet.  If you do need to eat out, make sure you are not starving when you go out, so you can avoid temptation and just get an entrée.

Too Much House

I’m not sure if it is a sign of status, but I see far too many people buying huge houses for a couple or small family, that being “house-poor” is not worth it when you figure how much you are losing out in putting in savings, or having life experiences.  Try getting a house that you can comfortably fit in instead of hearing echoes.

Overseas Vacations

Not a knock against any of the beautiful countries overseas from the United States, but the problem is the plane ticket.  With a going rate between $1,200-$1,600 at any given time, that could be the price of a mortgage payment.  While it may be a bucket list to travel abroad, save that for your later years when you can afford it.

Expensive Art

These days you can see every day on Pinterest how creative we are these days, reclaiming old wood into furniture, and buying cheap bookcase and adding molding to create an entire wall of storage that looks expensive.  There is no need to blow money on expensive art when you can create something decorative and trendy for pennies compared to what you would spend on fancy art that no one will know the difference anyhow.

Lottery Tickets

I am sorry to point out the (hopefully) obvious; you or anyone you know are not going to win the lottery.  Office teams pool together, senior play the same numbers every week, and what does it bring?  Lots of wasted money.  Give up the scratch-off’s and the easy-pick’s and invest in something that will make you interest, which will equal money.

Pet Clothes

I will keep this short and sweet.  Pet clothes look stupid, your dog does not enjoy and feels funny, and they are a complete waste of money.  Save the embarrassment to yourself and your pet, and keep the money.

Outrageous Wedding Dress

We see the wedding dress shopping reality shows on TV where the spoiled bride gets a budget of $5,000-10,000 for a dress that she will hopefully wear for only one night in her life.  Sure, it is an important day, don’t get me wrong, but although it is a great party, the memories will fade of what your dress looked like and you could have spent on a cheaper but elegant dress that still made you look beautiful.

Whether you are living off of wages that you feel could be higher, or do not have much leftover due to being on a strict budget, there are always ways to reduce spending so that you can gain a few extra bucks at the end of the month.  Once you have accounted for every dollar that comes in and goes out, you may have to think outside the box when it comes to saving extra money if you feel that you have reached your limit in getting rid of unnecessary expenses.

Pay Off Debt First

It may seem like common sense to pay off dent, and you might be thinking to yourself that you are already doing that but where do you get more money to do that?  Well basically any money that you have besides a necessary expense such as your mortgage, utilities, or food should go towards debt before anything else.  When I say food, I also mean grocery shopping for the necessities, not eating out or impulse purchases at the register.

Look for an Alternative to Daycare

Being a new parent I never paid attention to the prices of daycare until I had to enroll my child into one, and for those of you that do not know, it is ridiculous.  The daycare at my wife’s work is $63 per day which includes food and diapers, but for a newborn, diapers, maybe.  Let’s say this is every work day for a month, that is over $1200 a month.  If you can find a trustworthy family member to do it for say even $40 a day, that is around $800 a day, which gives you an extra $400 a month!

Sell Unused Items

If you are looking for extra money, look no further than what you probably have packed away in your house.  Try coming up with a rule of thumb, if you have not used the item in the past year, sell it, and see how that works.  If you do not have any high-priced items to sell online, then gathering your household items together for a garage sale might be a good way to get some extra cash together.  You can probably scout out items from family members too that they want to get rid of and have you sell.

Three’s Company?

A good way to bring in an extra few hundred a month, not to mention sharing utilities, whether you bring that into the overall cost or not, is getting a roommate.  Sure, you may think you left that behind in your college days, but back then your parents were paying, and now if money is tight it may be a great way to come up with some extra cash.

Trade Down

Take a look at your house and car.  Is your house too big for what you need and can you downgrade to say, a ranch?  Then maybe it makes sense to sell.  For your car, if you need a new car every few years with a lease, can you take a step down that may save a hundred or two a month?

For some may be a little leery about using a credit card, after all, all these years growing up it was always embedded into our heads that putting something on a credit card meant that you did not actually have the money and you were sort of kicking the can down the street, if you will.  That outlook has definitely changed over the years, and not only does putting charges on your credit card mean you do not have to pay until next month (and yes, make sure you pay off the entire balance by the due date to avoid interest), using the plastic is actually the financially responsible thing to do for making some purchases.

Basically, Any Online Shopping

Besides the giants like Amazon where they have pretty much a no questions asked return policy and almost instant refund as soon as the item is sent back, with free shipping back no less, there are plenty of sites that you do not know what happens when you put your credit card information in, so it would be nice to be able to dispute the charge if you do not receive the item, instead of paying with debit and waiting for the money to come back into your bank account, which could take a month.

Hotels and Rental Cars

Most hotels and rental car companies will accept debt cards at the time of reservation, but they will put a significant hold that can be upwards of a few hundred dollars on your account that will be reimbursed after completion, which then could take a week or two to be returned, a large sum of money to be missing for an extended period of time.

Big Ticket Items = Rewards $

I put everything on a credit card simply for the rewards dollars.  I do not go out of my way to purchase extra things, but the charges that I would have normally used my debit card for, like going out to eat, gas, and concert tickets, will now go on my credit card and I earn anywhere between 1-4% back on, which may not seem like much, until I received a $700 check recently for cashback on my previous year’s purchases, free to spend wherever.

Charitable Donations

I mention that it is nice to put charitable donations on a credit card simply for ease of keeping track.  When it comes to tax season you do not have to go searching for what you donated, you can check statements, instead of digging for cash receipts, which can be hard to prove if you are ever audited.

Monthly Bills

Not only will you earn rewards at the same time, but all of your monthly bills can come from the same source, and paid at once when the due date comes, instead of making sure you have enough at each pay period to spread them out over the course of the month, figuring out when the best time to pay is.  This way, you can set up automatic payments on the due date for everything and never worry about having insufficient funds or missing a payment.

It can be tough to have a little extra money left at the end of the month after paying bills, contributing to savings and retirement accounts, while budgeting for grocery, gas, and spending money.  If you are even coming out ahead you are doing a great job, but there are a few, if you think about, really unnecessary expenses that we continue to shell out money of each month, draining our accounts.

Cable TV

If you think about how many channels you pay versus how many you actually watch, and how often you even watch those channels, it can be upsetting to see how much you are spending on your cable bill each month.  Not that there is anything wrong with watching TV, but cable companies need to figure out a way to make it cheaper before subscribers are totally gone in favor of $10 a month streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu.

Snacks

Not only for health reasons is it good to avoid snacking between meals, but you are essentially spending money on junk food.  Unless you are having the guys over to watch a game and you put out a spread of your favorite gameday snacks, you should avoid at the grocery store.  Not only will you save at the grocery store, but ever stop into a gas station to buy snacks?  Those little bags are triple the price what the full size would have been at the grocery store.

Energy Drinks

Trading one caffeine addiction for another (hey, at least coffee is cheap, and you can brew at home and take a travel mug with you), energy drinks have plenty of poison in them that should be avoided in your body, not to mention spending a few dollars per can, more than what 20oz of sodas would be.  Unless you are a high performing athlete (even that I doubt could be proven that they are more effective), you should stick to free tap water.

Online Shopping

Talk about something else that can be an addiction is online shopping, especially coming from someone who works from home and has access to the internet all day sitting at my desk.  It can be easy to be distracted to go on Amazon, order an item or two, and have it arrive at your doorstep in two days, not even having to leave the house to go to the store.  Do your wallet a favor, and stop the online splurging.

Eating Out

While it is a convenience to have someone else prepare your food, not to mention cleaning up, it comes with an extremely high markup that these days a couple cannot go out to a restaurant and get out for under $40 with a tip, and that is even on the low end.  While it is enjoyable to go out to eat, try only going once a week, or on special occasions and you will see how quickly the money will add up only sticking to grocery shopping and eating at home.