Sign up for a health savings account and USE IT. (United States specific advice.)
It lowers your taxable income. The only caveat is you have to remember to use that money to buy things you were already going to buy anyway. Convenient hack to know what you can and can’t use: Doordash now labels HSA-eligible items at CVS. You don’t have to actually use Doordash to see which items you can buy with your HSA card.
You actually don’t have to spend money with an HSA, ever. You can invest it, and it rolls over. FSAs must be spent within the year you contribute, though.
Sorry, I didn’t say that clearly. What I mean is you have to remember to use the damn HSA card when you go to buy Tylenol instead of your normal payment method. This is…where I tend to fail lol
It’s also good to not use it, if you can afford to keep it and spend normally. HSA space is extremely limited, because it’s by far the best retirement account available. FSAs are fantastic for spending, as they don’t have as many restrictions and don’t carry over year over year.
If you save the receipt you can send it in to your HSA provider and have the expense reimbursed from your HSA. You can do this for many many years after the actual purchase date
There is a massive list of HSA eligible expenses, too. I am not advocating that people go out and spend their HSA money frivolously, but if you need to buy something that seems medical-related and you already have HSA funds, maybe look into getting reimbursed.
The coolest one to me is if you’re overweight or at risk for things like diabetes or atherosclerosis you may be able to get your doctor to write you a note allowing you to get things like fitness classes, gym membership fees, or fitness equipment (stationary bike, treadmill, etc.) paid with your HSA funds. In many cases prevention is the cure, and exercise is hugely hugely beneficial in preventing and managing a wide range of maladies so if you stick to it you may actually be saving yourself an even bigger medical expense down the line.
A lot of times you don’t need to buy containers, you can reuse the ones where your food came from.
For example inside my freezer there are three ice cream pots, but none of them has actual ice cream - it’s tomato paste, chickpeas, cat food. In the past I’ve also reused margarine and requeijão pots to store leftover food, as makeshift planters, etc. The requeijão pots even worked as drinking glasses in my uni times.
Here’s the trick I used when I was young and poor. I worked for cash with an estate liquidator, and I saw the passion some of the customers had for their collectables. I decided to develop that flavor of passion for a collection of $20 bills.
For me, the hardest part of saving money (assuming it’s even a possibility) is avoiding the trap of saving to spend. The savings itself has to become a goal, and that can be really, really boring.
Another tactic I used was to always save double the value of a large planned purchase: if I started with $500 and I wanted a $200 item, I’d save until I had $900 before spending. That way my stack never felt like it was diminishing.
If you have any public drug coverage and you can’t afford food, you might be able to get your dr to “prescribe” food (stuff like Ensure, Resource, etc) and have it filled for free from public exceptional coverage.
If you have money going out per month, use Klarna (or similar services) for Pay in 3 set ups for better goods that may cost a little bit too much for paying all at once.
Whilst there are bargains to be had, many cheaper appliances may fail or reduce in quality so quick; however, the ‘good’ things are often a fair bit out of people’s price ranges.
I have used Klarna for various things around the house, also good shoes, on the same day per month that I’ve received money. They’ve all lasted a very long time and much better than cheaper alternatives, and they’re fully paid off in three months.
There is no interest taken, and can come in handy. I have gotten a washing machine and big fridge/freezer using no interest installment plans, and over time they’ve saved me even more money by being more energy efficient than the cheaper ones.
There’s also an app called Zip that let’s you do 4 payments and you can extend the dates too plus it allows you to pay for some bills like Verizon, T-Mobile, GEICO, etc
Cook your own food. Ready made meals will always be made with as much cheap non nutritional filler as possible. Learn how to use a few spices, buy produce that is cheap with the season and keep track of weekly discounts in your local stores. It will save you money, you’ll eat better and it’s rewarding to have a tasty meal in the end.
Also I’m surprised how many people don’t seem to understand pricing in general. When comparing prices, see the price per weight or volume. That is money/kilogram or money/liter (substitute with freedom units). Money per package can be deceiving if you compare 75 money for a smaller package or 95 money for a larger.
Edit: If the need to learn spices makes you overwhelmed, start out with some spice mixes! Pick a couple of different blends that are different, like one Cajun Mix and one Mediterranean and one oh idk something else culturally generic. Also salt, pepper, paprika and bullion. There. You can make lots of different sorts of foods and learn on the way what spices you like. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Don’t get discouraged. Some stuff will turn out meh, but others will make you go wow. All of those are learning experiences for the future!
On the cooking one, I also recommend cooking double portions when you can. If you can cook twice as much with minimal effort, that’s half the cleaning you have to do afterwards and half the meal planning you have to do. You get up in the morning and know that you have leftovers from dinner ready to go for lunch in the fridge. Also, rice. Rice is cheap, good for you, and incredibly flexible in what you can do with it. A rice cooker is also a great appliance to have in general. Not only is it an easy set and forget for a pot of rice, but you can do all sorts of meals in it from steaming meats and vegetables to cooking soups and even baking desserts. An air fryer is similarly flexible and great for making meals for one person. You don’t have to preheat it or anything and it doesn’t cost all the energy that a full size oven does.
That’s true. Food prep is great for the economy and also for the soul. You can generally find larger amounts cheaper per weight and it’s nice to know them you get home and are tired that there is some good food waiting to be reheated.
Don’t take on debt if at all possible. If you use a credit card, try to pay it off each month. Don’t get one with annual fees. Get one that has cash back not miles or points.
Learn to make your own coffee instead of buying Starbucks or whatever. A decent hand grind will last for a decade and cost around $50. A no name pour over dripper and filters are a cheap way to make coffee at home. Buy beans and keep them in an air tight container and they will be good for a month.
This is a recipe that my grandma taught my while she was still alive and I’ll pass it on to my nonexistent children when they are old enough to drink coffee.
A no name pour over dripper and filters are a cheap way to make coffee at home.
Moka, French, and Turkish give you better results, don’t require disposable filters, are usually cheaper, and aside from Turkish don’t require experience to make good coffee.
Here in Australia we “product relievers” have a sort of rule that the big stores woolworths, coles ect are fucking free game and to leave the family convienience store alone.
My brother convinced me not to, as Coles and Woolworths are often franchised by families. Head office takes their cut regardless, whatever you steal comes out of the franchise owners wallet. Happy to be proven wrong as I’d love to knick from em.
I agree with you. I get the sentiment, but even stealing from large corporations like Wal-Mart is just backfiring in slow motion. They will eventually just either raise pricing to accommodate theft, install theft deterrents, or hire more people to be theft deterrents, all of which the cost is passed onto the customer. ie, you and me, and the thieves that complain about the high prices and steal to offset the cost. This isn’t to defend shitty practices by big corporations. But nuanced opinions are lost on most people, and I’ll subsequently likely be called out for defending consumerism/capitalism.
Don’t put yourself into an even more miserable situation when it doesn’t even benefit you in a measurable way.
E.g. Lights/dark rooms: Let’s say you use a 5W LED light bulb (which should be bright enough to decently light most rooms). If you leave that running 24/7 for a whole year, that is going to cost you ~13€/$ (0,3€/$/kWh). You are not going to keep it running 24/7, you are not even going to run it half the day. It is not worth 5 bucks to spend the whole year in darkness, no matter how little money you have.
Obviously turn off the light when you’re not in the room or it’s the middle of the day in summer, but be reasonable with yourself.
The same goes for food: Sure, buying cheap staples (in bulk if possible) is a great idea, but don’t try to save 5 cents if that means skipping on the salt, herbs and tomato paste which would take your 2/10 bland bowl of carbs to at least a 7/10 and give you something to look forward to.
My work made me get dress clothes, my solution was thrift shop bargain bin, just pick the clothes you like as long as they fit or are too big, and get them fitted.
It was cheeper then going to Walmart and getting worse clothes.
Remember a lot of effort and money is spent into brainwashing us from young ages to be constantly be buying shit we don’t need and to feel like we are living bad lives if we don’t have it.
Remember it’s bullshit, remember that you are more than the fucking trinkets and landfill filling they want you to trade all your time for.
Boycott shit, find any reasonable moral cause as a good reason not to buy something. There’s almost always a good reason not to buy something that you don’t need.
I feel like it would take just as much effort and basically a whole other upbringing, in a sense, to become accustomed to all the things we were raised with. So i get what you mean, but I dont know exactly how possible it really is, or none of us would really be here, for example.
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