5 Creative Ways to Save More Cash
Do you feel as though money is the one thing that’s always on your mind? Join the club. In today’s economy, most of us are obsessed with money, whether it’s thinking about how we’re going to stretch our pay to handle all of our bills or figuring out how to save up for the next big expense.
Although money might not be the key to happiness, it’s much harder to lead a life of contentment if you’re constantly worrying about your cash. The good news is that if you have a creative side, you can use it to make your pennies stretch a bit further.
Today, we’re going to look at some of the top creative ways to enhance your spending strategy for 2019 and 2020 alike.
- Sell What You Don’t Use/Need
You don’t have to be desperate for cash before you begin hunting through your attic for old knickknacks to sell. One of the easiest ways to keep your bank account steady and your home clean is to sell anything that you haven’t used or looked at for a few months.
For instance, when’s the last time you went through your games collection and sold a few of your physical titles to make some extra cash? These days, many people buy their games digitally, which means that old games simply sit on a shelf. However, if you’ve got a good collection, you could make some extra dollars by selling what you don’t want online. Take a leaf out of Marie Kondo’s book – the woman on Netflix, which helps people to clean up their homes and get rid of anything that doesn’t fill you with joy.
- Pay Attention
This might not sound like the most creative way to save cash but stay with us. Ultimately, one of the biggest reasons that people end up harming their budget is that they don’t pay attention to what they spend. If you’re one of the people who just lets subscription costs disappear from your bank account each month without thinking about them, now could be the right time to start thinking more carefully about what you spend.
To get creative, experiment with the way that you track your spending habits. You could keep a whiteboard in your kitchen, use an app on your smartphone, or just set up an Excel spreadsheet. It’s totally up to you. Pay attention to anything that appears to be a problem area for you, like overspending on clothes or food.
- Stop Window Shopping
We all like to tell ourselves that window shopping is harmless, as long as we don’t buy the things that we’re looking at. However, these days, there’s inspiration for how to spend your money everywhere. Even Pinterest and Instagram is likely to get you feeling the urge to splash your cash. With that in mind, it’s important to stay strong and only start window shopping when you know you have money to spend.
The more time you spend browsing through products online, the more of a chance there is that one of those clever marketers online will convince you to ignore your budget just this once and buy something that you might not genuinely want or need.
- Credit Card or Loan?
Being cautious with your money doesn’t mean that you have to ignore lending opportunities entirely. Eventually, you might need to borrow a little money from somewhere whether you like it or not. If that’s the case, the best thing you can do is consider your options carefully and use comparison sites such as Readies.co.uk where possible.
On the other hand, would a credit card that gives you special rewards be a better choice, mainly if you know that you can pay back what you owe as quickly as possible? Scour the market to find the thing that’s best-suited to your needs.
- Start Collecting Coins
Finally, if you want to save more money each day, one of the easiest things you can do is begin coin collecting. No, we’re not talking about buying expensive rare coins on the internet. Instead, whenever you’re left with a handful of dimes in your pocket, place them into a jar instead. You might not make a fortune saving money this way, but you will end up with a little extra cash that you can put into your bank at the end of each month.
More importantly, when you get into the habit of saving coins, you start to treat every bit of money you get as precious – no matter how small it might be.