What is something small that helps you save money?

[bjl584]

Some common answers:

Meal prepping
No spend days
Not getting alcohol when eating out
Using the library
Coupons
Searching for reduced emission for events
Participating in free trial offers
Not autosaving credit card info for online purchases (manually having to enter all the information may make you think twice about buying)

[james.hendrickson]

So, I go back and forth on coupons - sometimes they're helpful, sometimes they just increase spending.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

carpooling, putting errands together. don't shop on amazon

[disneysteve]

don't shop on amazon

Shopping on Amazon saves us a ton of money. Before we buy most things, we check the price on Amazon first. 90% of the time we order it on Amazon because it's cheaper there.

[Drake3287]

Even though I can easily afford it, there are a ton of grocery store items we refuse to pay full price for, we'll always look for what ever is on sale. For example cereal, I would never pay full price for a box of cereal, there are always other brands that are on sale at any given time. There's a ton of products like this, chips, soda, bread, frozen foods, canned goods, the list is endless. I would venture to say that at least half the items we buy at the grocery store are on sale. Who would pay the full $6.99 price of a bag of chips, beer's another one, we all have our favorite brands but I'll take second choice if it's on sale. And how about meat, with the price being so high these days I'll find something else like chicken instead.

[kork13]

One of my most consistent little in cost savings is with grocery shopping ... I always focus primarily on cost per ounce (or count, or whatever). It can often be deceptive, especially when there's multiple sizes of the same thing. For example, today we were participating in a block party. I was buying some packs of saffron rice, and noticed that the large boxes were more expensive (per ounce) than the half-size packages by almost 20%. I was buying alot of it, so instead of buying 5 boxes at $1.60/box, I bought 10 half-size bags at 65¢ apiece.

Another easy savings is buying meat based on what's on sale. Often, unsold fresh meat will be discounted at the end of the day, sometimes by 30% off or more. And if it doesn't sell, they'll often freeze it & discount it even further to 50% off. So it lasts longer & is alot cheaper .... Win-win!

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Shopping on Amazon saves us a ton of money. Before we buy most things, we check the price on Amazon first. 90% of the time we order it on Amazon because it's cheaper there.

i find that amazon is crappy chinese products and it's often worse now with the algorithm

[disneysteve]

i find that amazon is crappy chinese products and it's often worse now with the algorithm

I've seen other people say that and we just don't find that to be true. We're always able to find what we're looking for there, often brand name products, but at a better price than anywhere else.

[msomnipotent]

Writing down a weekly menu. I have a tendency to defrost a bunch of meat and tell myself I will make sides with whatever is in the pantry or fridge, then forget to shop for ingredients. I make a menu while looking at the grocery ads and pull up recipes to make sure I have the ingredients. And I feel like I have to do it since I wrote it down.

I'm into perfume and it tends to get expensive. I ask the department stores for samples, then I buy little decants if I like the samples. If I run out of the decant, then I will think about buying a full bottle. And even then, I will wait for a sale and ask a relative to use their employee discount if I can.

[ua_guy]

Both Amazon and eBay...it's easy to get sucked into browsing and being tempted to buy things. One of the things I do is "save for later" in the cart instead of buying now. Sure, there's a constant reminder that it's in there being saved, but if I come back to it a few days later I might feel differently about purchasing something I truly don't need. On Amazon I keep two lists. A wish list of truly elective things I like and want, and the "we need this" list for the household.

[Chevelle72]

If the goal is minimizing impulse buying, you might want to focus on the "digital friction" trick.
For that situation, the simplest option is deleting shopping apps and unsubscribing from store emails. No temptation popping up means no accidental spending. I found this works way better than any budgeting app.