10 Common Things to Give Up to Save Money

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If you want to be successful in achieving your financial goals, you need to be intentional with your money saving efforts.

There are things in your life that are costing you money each month while providing little to no value in return.

If you’re interested in finding ways to save more money, here are 10 common things to give up to save money.

Table of Contents

Eating Out

According to this Forbes article, it is almost five times more expensive to order delivery from a restaurant than to cook it at home. When you remove the cost of delivery ($5), it’s still nearly three times as much and this figure doesn’t include tip.

If you are serious about saving money each month, you should be making most, if not all, of your meals at home.

If you’re worried about the social aspect of it, ask your friends over for dinner. You might find that they’re just as willing to participate in saving extra cash.

Drinking Out

When I say “drinking out” I mean all of those places you go out to buy a drink.

For most people this is predominantly coffee shops, smoothie places, and bars.

The drinks at these places are expensive, especially when compared to the same product either bought at a grocery store or homemade.

Feeling a hankering for a cold beer? Go to your local grocery store and pick up a six-pack. Or even consider brewing it yourself.

Need that flavored coffee drink from the local coffee shop? Look into making it yourself. If you’re a frequent coffee drinker, you should be able to buy the equipment and ingredients and recoup your costs in no time (when compared to getting drinks from the coffee shop)

Really want that after-workout smoothie? Buy the ingredients from your local grocery store, throw it in your blender, and, voila, a homemade smoothie.

Your Cable Service

Cable bills can be expensive. If you have decent internet connection, you might consider switching to a steaming service like Netflix, YouTube TV, Sling, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Philo, Disney Plus, etc.

If you’re worried about losing some programming that you love, there may be an option that meets your programming goals and is still cheaper than cable.

We recently cut the cord and the option that provided us with the programming we wanted ended up being a combination of YouTube TV and Philo. YouTube TV provided the majority of our programming wants while Philo added a few channels that my wife was looking for like Hallmark.

Even using two streaming services to replace cable, we still saved ~$60/month versus cable.

Your Gym Membership

Most people don’t use their gym membership very often and could save money and time by working out at home.

There are plenty of free activities that you can do that will provide a great workout like:

Running
Biking
Swimming
Walking
Body Weight Exercises (pushups, sit-ups, burpees, jumps, etc.)

There are a number of websites you can visit that can provide lists of exercises and exercise routines you can do at home without any equipment like this article from Runner’s World or Self.

Unplanned Purchases

If you’re serious about saving money each month, you need to create a budget and stick to it.

To stay on budget, you can’t afford any impulse buys or unplanned purchases throughout the month.

Each purchase you make needs to be well thought out and considered. You need to practice mindful spending.

To practice mindful spending consider doing the following before spending money:

Review your goals – Does this purchase help me get closer to my goals?
Perform research/read reviews – Try to learn as much about the product as possible. Will this help you solve your problem? Is there a more affordable alternative? Are there any major issues with the product?
Practice the pause – For larger purchases, try to wait a week to a month before making the purchase. This will give you time to truly consider the consequences of the purchase.
Shop with a list – Before heading off to a store or shopping online, it makes sense to sit down and create a shopping list first. Once you actually start shopping, you’ll be hit with a number of different ads, product suggestions, and other temptations that are designed to make you buy more.
Avoid shopping temptations – You know you better than anyone. If you know that going out with friends to the mall is going to cause you to spend money, avoid the temptation altogether and suggest a different activity. If visiting an online retailer in your leisure time is going to result in a purchase, avoid their website.

Your Credit Cards

Although some credit cards can be useful, like those with sign up bonuses and rewards, they are more trouble than they’re worth.

With high interest-rates and fees, they quickly become a burden at the first sign of financial trouble.

To avoid getting yourself in financial trouble, its best just to avoid them altogether.

When you’ve created your budget each month, consider using the envelope method (cash in envelopes for different budget categories).

If you must use a credit card, try to narrow it down to one credit card and keep it paid down.

Cell Phone Upgrades

Are you one of those folks that has to have the newest smartphone?

If so, you could easily save hundreds to thousands of dollars by just holding onto your existing phone until you actually need a new one.

I would wait to get a new one until it has major technical issues or just stops working altogether (and even then it might be worth taking to a repair shop first).

Lottery Tickets

When you play the lottery, the chances of actually winning are slim.

According to an article by CNBC, about half of Americans play state lotteries and the average consumer spends $1,038 per year on lottery tickets.

You are much better off taking the money you would have spent on lottery tickets and investing it. You’d be surprised how much $1,000+ per year adds up to with the power of compound interest.

If you were to invest that $1,000 each year for 30 years with a 7% interest rate compounded annually, you would have $94,460.79!

Unused Subscriptions

If you have any subscriptions like newspapers, magazines, investing services, etc. that you don’t use, you should get rid of them asap. That’s money you could be putting towards paying off debt, saving, and investing.

I had a subscription to Thrive Market for a couple of years because I liked what the company was offering, but often found that ordering from them was either an afterthought or was only beneficial when they had certain things on sale (otherwise I could find it cheaper at other sellers). After holding on for a couple of years, I finally decided to cut ties because it wasn’t providing enough value to justify the costs.

Comparisons to Others

This one is a big one. If you truly want to save money and get ahead financially, you need to stop comparing your life to others.

You should know what’s important to you and what your financial goals are (if you don’t, you need to spend some time figuring it out). Focus on achieving your financial goals.

If you stop buying things just to impress or fit in, you’ll find that you don’t actually need much to be happy.