In a world as advanced as this, it’s pretty easy to get things done; from the most basic stuff to the very tasky ones especially with the dominance of the digital lifestyle; food deliveries, home appliances, gadgets, subscriptions, digital products. These could all take less than a click of a finger to get. All you need is your smartphone and some cash… And speaking of cash, I’m sure we all agree that living that stress-free “baby girl” lifestyle is tied to how much you have in your bank account. Now you see where I’m heading! Money is not so easy to come by and it only gets harder as the standard of living rises. It’s much worse as a mom or dad having a family to cater for. Inevitably, you’re stuck with having to economize with the little you have. But what if I told you that you can get everything you need for your home and family without having to spend more? Yes! You can eat that dream food of yours, get your ruined car fixed, have your kids’ torn clothes mended and much more without having to pay through your nose. You could even never run out of food or data for a long time! So, while everyone is saying, “you can’t have your cake and eat it”, I will tell you exactly how you CAN have your cake and eat it. LOL. Grab a seat while I show your eight easy ways to spend less, save more and still get everything you wish for.
Conserve Your Home Resources
When a lot of people hear the statement above, they think it’s only related to maintaining a healthy ecosystem. But that isn’t all there is to conservation of resources. The resources you use at home like electricity, light, water can also be conserved in order to cut down on monthly electricity bills. For instance, instead of leaving your lights, air conditioner, fans and other appliances on when going to work, you should turn off every electrical appliance in your home before leaving. Of course, that’s if you don’t have your kids staying at home or if your kids are usually off to school on working days. Why leave the appliances on and keep your charges increasing when there’s no one at home to use them? You can always switch them off and put them back on when you return. Wouldn’t even take you more than a minute. This way, you get to save your money and still have enough resources to serve you for a while. Another great way to conserve your resources is to avoid misusing water. Leaving your water faucet on when you’re not making use of the water is a terrible idea. Make it a habit to always turn off your water even when you’re in the process of cooking. This way, you don’t have to pay for wasted water…do you? There are a lot other things you can do to save your resources like avoiding leaving your burner on when not in immediate use, making sure to warm up leftover foods to prevent spoilage and more. The goal here is to avoid wastage of your resources and as a result, avoid excessive spending.
Get an Insurance
We often hear of insurance but only few are aware of the benefits of having insurance. Insurance helps control the risk of possible losses you might come across in the future; loss of properties like houses, cars… You can even get life insurance. Insurance is aimed at helping you retrieve properties should you lose them in unforeseen circumstances. For instance, if you get insurance on your car and later in the future, you happen to lose it in an accident or a fire outbreak, the insurance company involved will sort out the finances for getting you a new car. Likewise your house or any other property involved. This way, you don’t have to face the struggle of looking for money to get a new one or being stuck without any option at all. All you have to do is go to a legal insurance company and get your property insured. To get insurance, you’ll be required to pay some money called “Premium”. The premium cost depends on the insurance company and the type of insurance you want; that is property, liability or life insurance. However, the most common insurance people opt for is property insurance (for their cars, houses, lands and more). One excuse a lot of people make for not getting insurance is that they can’t afford it. Okay, that’s very understandable. But trust me, losing your property to unforeseen circumstances without any back up plan or support is much more depressing. If you wind up losing your house in a fire outbreak, what will be your next plan? How soon will you be able to rent or buy a new house for you and your family? Will your family have to remain stuck at a shelter? These are critical things to look out for. You never can tell what is about to hit you. This is why getting insurance remains the best option. First start by going to the nearest insurance company, find out the amount required and if you can’t pay at once, make a savings plan for it. Although it might seem like you’re paying too much, you’ll see that you’ve saved much more when caught in an emergency situation and your insurance company steps in and replaces your lost property.
Put Your Basic Home Skills to Use
Having a family with kids can be so stressful and worse still, financially demanding. There are basic things you just can’t do without in the home; food, clothing, furniture, electrical appliances. These are stuff anyone would be ready to spend any amount for. Maintaining them also costs a lot… Your clothes need sewing when they’re torn, your kid’s shoes need mending when they’re spoiled, your walls at home need repainting when the paint on them starts to wear out, your chairs and tables need to be fixed when they’re broken, so many other things to maintain at home. Getting people who’re skilled to work on them can be quite tempting and honestly, I agree it could be the best option, but the sad thing here is that it isn’t free. So I’m thinking, isn’t it just best if you put your basic skills to use? You can mend those torn clothes yourself. At least, that’s something everyone has an idea about. You can run nails through your broken furniture, repaint your walls, mend your shoes yourself and save yourself some money instead of paying people to do them for you. Personally, I do most of the stuff at home myself right down to fixing the disconnected wires. If there’s anyone you feel you don’t really know how to do, you can watch some tutorial classes on YouTube and learn basic skills. I mean, why spend so much money on them when you can do them yourself? It’ll help you save a lot of money in the long run and still get your home fixed.
Don’t Ditch Those Containers!
Usually, when you buy a jar of peanut butter, a can of sweet corn, a bottle of milk, a carton of biscuits or other stuff that come with containers and wraps, instinctively, you find yourself aiming at the trash can to dispose of the container. And that’s understandable. I mean, it’s just a waste… isn’t it? Well no, it isn’t just waste. That empty container you call “waste” can be used for a ton of other important things. It’s called recycling. If you happen to buy a jar of mayonnaise, you don’t need to be in a hurry to throw the jar away after eating it all up. Instead, you could use it to store food stuffs like your seasoning cubes, spices and if you’re a mom who often makes cookies for the kids or you’re a lover of cookies like me, you can store them in the empty jar. As a mom that loves keeping things natural and would rather make juice or drinks for her kids at home, empty juice/ water bottles can come in handy, especially if you love making enough to last more than one day; you can keep them in empty juice bottles (as much as you need) and store them in your fridge for as long as you want. Drinking juice from bottles, especially juice bottles, makes kids more excited, unlike when they drink from cups. You can also use empty cartons for keeping writing materials like pencils, erasers, crayons, paints and paint brushes, books, novels and if you’re creative enough, you can even turn them into jewelry boxes. You can recycle anything. Even buttons from your old clothes can be reused for new ones that have missing buttons. So, instead of spending cash to buy new food jars for food stuffs and new buttons for your clothes, you can recycle your stuff and save yourself more money.
Cancel All Automatic Subscriptions
If you’re so keen on saving money, this is another great way to do that. Opting for automatic subscriptions for internet data, T.V decoders, Netflix or Wifi in your home can be so comforting. I mean, you don’t have to worry about running out of data or going through the process of resubscribing. But the problem with automatic subscriptions is that you don’t get to gauge or check-mate your use of data. For instance, I found out that whenever I sign up for automatic subscriptions, I tend to spend so much more because I exhaust my data faster. But without automatic subscriptions, I tend to be more aware of how much I spend on data. Whenever I find that I’ve spent so much on subscriptions already, I buy smaller data plans or even decide not to subscribe for a while. This is the good thing about being in charge of your subscriptions. Using automatic subscriptions can make you a heavy consumer of data. You’ll find yourself exhausting it in a very short while because your data plan will easily be renewed as soon as possible. On the other hand, you get to economize your consumption of data when you’re in charge of every of your subscriptions. Instead of your data lasting you just two weeks, it could last for a whole month. This way, you’ll be able to save more cash while you and your family still get to enjoy sufficient use of data.
Make Your Health Your Priority
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You heard this saying, “health is wealth”? It’s more than just an old random saying. As much as you invest in businesses that yield profits, you should invest in your health too. Without good health, you can’t go out there and fetch money to take care of yourself and family. But much worse is the fact that poor health can reap you of your life earnings; you might have to spend the little cash you have on your health if you ignore it. Same applies with your kids or siblings at home. Not putting their health first as a parent or elder sibling is a big risk, as you might have to pay much more than you can afford on hospital bills if they fall sick. So, you shouldn’t ignore the little things you can do to boost your health and that of your family to avoid critical illnesses. Frequent in-take of fruits and veggies does wonders to health. The vitamins they contain boost health with antioxidants. They also reduce your chances of developing heart diseases, cancer and diabetes. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”, so they say. Fruits keep you hydrated and help in digestion. Frequent intake of water is something you should make a habit as well. Avoid eating junk foods always. Their high calories won’t do you any good. Exercise often to help rid your body of excess calories, strengthen your muscles and keep you fit. Lastly and most importantly, make sure to always go to the doctor for medical check-ups always. You can visit the hospital monthly or bi-monthly, whichever one you’re comfortable with. But do not stay for months without medical check-ups to avoid growth of illnesses in your body without your knowledge. It is expensive to care for your health, but it’s even much more expensive to revive a poor health. You might end up spending double of the amount you could have used to prevent the illness. Make your health your priority and you’ll be saving much more.
Cook Your Meals Yourself
Speaking of health, one of the best ways to stay healthy is by cooking the food you eat yourself. If you must prioritize your health, you should be ready to quit the habit of eating foods cooked by roadside food vendors or in random restaurants especially because you can’t tell the level of hygiene used in preparing the foods they sell. When you prepare your meals, you get to apply as much caution and hygiene as you want. Plus, you also get to use the kind of spices that your body accepts. Anyways, that’s not the topic at the moment. Back to our discussion. LOL. Another very effective way to save more money is cooking your own meals. A lot of people give excuses saying they don’t have the time to cook at home due to their jobs, a few others say they aren’t good at cooking, while many others are just plain lazy. Either way, the truth is the cost of food deliveries and eating in restaurants are enough to get you and your family enough groceries to last for a long while. If you do your calculation on how much you spend eating outside weekly, you’ll find that you’re losing an incredible amount of money. An average meal in a restaurant costs about $10 in the US. Meanwhile, groceries for a one-man meal costs about $4. See the difference? The price of one single meal is enough to get you groceries for cooking and even some money left. So instead of always eating out or frequently ordering food online for your family, you should opt for cooking your own meals. If you don’t have enough time because of your job, make time for it. If you aren’t a good cook, don’t worry about that, there are countless books, television shows and YouTube tutorials that can teach you how to cook different meals. You’ll be glad you took this decision as you’ll be able to save more money for more pressing needs.
Quit That “Penny Wise, Pound Foolish” Thing
Are you the kind that likes buying home stuff in bits or in small quantities? Quit it already. If you want to save more money, you have to quit buying things needed in your home in small amounts. Your food stuff, beverages, drinks and others should be bought in large quantities. This is because products bought wholesale are usually sold in cheaper amounts. And that’s exactly how retail sellers get to make their profits; they buy products in large quantities from the distribution company or wholesalers at cheaper prices then sell them at increased prices. Wouldn’t it be great to enjoy that benefit too? As a mum or dad trying to cut down on expenses, buying food materials in wholesale quantities would help you save more money and still fetch you enough supplies to last you and your family for a long while. While you might say you don’t have enough money to buy in large quantities, I’ll advise that you plan ahead and save towards it instead of sticking to the routine of buying from roadside stores and losing more money in the long run. Personally, when I realized how much I was losing on a daily basis from buying in small quantities from retail stores, I made a decision that every month end, I’ll buy food materials in large quantities from wholesalers, enough to serve me and my family for a month and it has been one of my best decisions so far. With this routine, you’ll get to enjoy better access to feeding supplies without having to spend more.
Your money would never truly be enough, no matter how much you have or how wealthy you are because there are more than a million insatiable human desires that you need money for. That’s why you should be keen on preserving the little you have in the same way you put in efforts to maintain a healthy ecosystem. These eight tips I listed above are only a few of the many ways to save money in your home. They’re very easy to practice but very effective in the long run. Start putting them into practice today, and you’ll be amazed at how much money you’ll save and how well you’ll cut down on expenses. Many thanks for reading! Was this article helpful to you? I’d love to get feedback from you on how this article has helped you spend less on basic needs and save more cash. Are there other useful tips you know of? Write them in the comments section. I’m eager to know your answers!
Jane Orioha
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Note: While content aims to align with Catholic teachings, any inconsistencies or errors are unintended. For precise understanding, always refer to authoritative sources like the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Always double-check any quotes for word-for-word accuracy with the Bible or the Catechism of the Catholic Church.