4 Ways to Save Money on a Weekly Basis

With the recent crunches on employment and earnings, it seems that everyone is looking to save a buck or two. When you have already created a budget, you may be wondering how to cut down even more on your weekly expenses. While you may not be able to do much to save on your gas, there are other areas of shopping and costs that can be saved. Included here are a few tips for saving money.

Clip Coupons

While the advent of television shows like extreme couponers has created a cult-like following, the act of clipping coupons has been a simple weekly task for thousands of Americans for decades. Investing in a Sunday newspaper can be a great way to save on your groceries each week. Because Sunday coupons are often so much better than the rest of the week, you will easily recoup the cost of the paper in your weekly coupon savings.

Save Your Change

Many people are looking to save money but have a hard time putting it aside and leaving it. For many individuals, the easiest way to set cash aside is to save their pennies, literally. This means each day when you come home, put all of your loose change in a separate jar and don’t remove money from it. You may even start a separate savings account at another bank to deposit this money at. Give yourself the restriction of no withdrawals and you may be surprised how quickly your funds will add up.

Cut Excess Spending

The simplest way to save money is not to spend it. You may feel you have already cut down as much as possible, but there are often many areas of your budget that could still be leaking cash. This is true of morning coffees, movie rentals and candy bar splurges. Every time you make a purchase that is not a strict necessity, you are letting money go that you could be keeping. While they may seem like “small” things, it is quite easy to nickel and dime yourself out of a savings account.

Trim Your Budget

Have you ever noticed that different people seem to have different ideas of what the “bare minimum” is? For example, your budget may constrict you to only having $200 outside bills to spend each month, while someone else may have “only” $1,000. Both of your ideas of the bare minimum are different, and you can feel the crunch at totally different income levels.

While some of these constraints are applied personally, by living in more house than you need or driving a more expensive brand of car, often you can cut down your necessities. This means taking a hard look at your budget and your monthly expenses.

Do you really need to have a subscription to that magazine? Are you using your gym membership? Is cable costing you too much? Find the extra costs that are adding up each month and trim them out.