Episode: 329 - Stop the Financial Drip: Five Ways to Retain More of Your Income
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A common misconception is that the only path to financial prosperity is earning more money. Yet, the reality is that money can often slip through the cracks without us even noticing. With a few strategic adjustments, you can find extra cash with minimal effort. Here are five practical strategies to enhance your financial wellbeing.
- Reevaluate Your Subscriptions
Subscriptions can easily pile up, becoming unnoticed drains on your finances. From streaming services like Netflix and Spotify to gym memberships and app subscriptions, many of us continue paying for services we barely use. To uncover these hidden costs, pull up your bank or credit card statements from the past few months. Identify and cancel or pause subscriptions that are not critical. Consider rotating your streaming services as a way to enjoy content without shouldering the cost of multiple subscriptions simultaneously. Cutting back can save you between $10 to $50—or perhaps even more—each month.
- Plan Meals and Cut Down on Takeout
Dining out is one of the largest contributors to unnecessary spending. Just one takeout meal per week can add an extra $30 to your expenses. By planning meals and reducing takeout, you can make a significant impact on your budget. Begin by crafting a meal plan using the ingredients you already have at home. You can use AI tools to help build meal plans and grocery lists tailored to your needs. Preparing meals at home not only saves money but also reduces food waste. Experiment with making at-home versions of your favorite takeout dishes, and aim to reduce takeout by at least one meal a week.
- Declutter and Sell Unused Items
Many households have unused items that could easily be converted into cash. By decluttering and selling three to five items each week—such as clothes, toys, gadgets, or tools—you might find yourself $50 richer. Sell items on platforms like Facebook Marketplace, Poshmark, or organize a garage sale. This strategy not only helps clear your space but also provides an opportunity to boost your cash reserves.
- Negotiate Your Bills
Many service providers offer room for negotiation, often resulting in savings of $20 or more per month. This can include anything from your insurance to your internet bill. Many people have successfully reduced their costs by contacting service providers and inquiring about discounts or loyalty deals. You might also find value in switching to lower-cost service plans, potentially offering you improved benefits at a reduced rate.
- Embrace No-Spend Weekends
One effective way to save money is by instituting no-spend weekends. Avoid spending money on non-essential activities and instead partake in free alternatives such as hiking, park outings, or game nights. By dedicating just one weekend a month to this practice, significant savings can be realized. Use gift cards, rewards, or enjoy gatherings with friends where everyone contributes a dish. This strategy could save anywhere between $30 and $50 each time.
By employing even just one of these strategies, you're on your way to uncovering an extra hundred dollars or more each month. This is achievable without requiring additional work or side gigs. Whether you choose to reevaluate subscriptions, plan meals, sell unused items, negotiate bills, or challenge yourself with no-spend weekends, each step brings you closer to financial freedom. Take action today and see the impact on your finances.
Resources Mentioned
The Totally Awesome Debt Freedom Planner https://www.debtfreedad.com/planner
To learn how to take the stress out of your finances so you can breathe again, follow this link: https://www.debtfreedad.com/lwp-masterclass-opt-in-page-podcast
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Transcript:
Amber:
A lot of people think the only way to get ahead financially is to make more money, but the truth is you likely have money slipping through the cracks every single month. So in this episode, I'm sharing five simple ways to find extra cash without a whole lot of effort. Hi, I'm Amber, today's host for the Debt-Free Dad Podcast, where we help normal everyday people like you take control of your finances so you can live a happier, less stressful life. Now my husband and I, in just 20 months, saved and paid off $54,000 and have been living debt-free outside of our mortgage since 2018. After listening to this episode, if you're ready to take things to the next level, ready to break free from living paycheck to paycheck, reduce financial stress, build your savings and finally pay off debt for good, but you're not sure where to start, we've created an incredible free resource to help you get there, and I'll share all of the details later on in today's episode. So, like I said, I've got five different strategies that you can use to increase your money or, I guess, find where it's leaking a little bit.
Amber:
Number one subscriptions. Oh my gosh, you could save easily if not not more $10 to $50 every single month. How many subscriptions are you actually using? Have you gone through your bank account to see if there's any subscriptions that are sitting there that you completely forgot about but you're still paying for Between Netflix, hulu, disney+, spotify, meal kits, gym memberships and just random app subscriptions? It's incredibly easy to lose track of these things and I mean I admit I'm guilty of it. I personally had two Amazon Prime accounts. I don't know how it happened, amazon Prime accounts, I don't know how it happened, but I was paying for two for a full year, with two separate emails one under my business account, one under my personal account and I don't even know why I had two. So it is so easy to lose track of that and if you're not paying attention to your bank account on a regular basis, it's easy to just go oh, I didn't even realize that was happening, especially when it's $5 here, $6 there, $20 here. So pull up your bank statements, pull up your credit card statements for the last two to three months and identify some subscriptions that you may have forgotten about or you're just really not using anymore you can't justify using anymore and cancel them or, if anything, pause them and when you pause them, put a notification on your phone for when they're supposed to start up again, you will likely see that you didn't even miss them in the first place. Now, if you're thinking but I love my streaming services right, I mean, we all have some that we absolutely love Consider rotating them. If you maybe love Netflix and you love Amazon Prime and you love Disney, maybe just rotate them. You'll get a little bit of that for a little while and then, when you're done with those kind of shows, switch it up right. Pay for one at a time instead of stacking them all up. Now, the estimated savings for most people when they're cutting subscription services is about $10 to $50. But I would almost guess that some of us have much higher subscription services than that that we can cut out substantially.
Amber:
Number two meal plan and skip the takeout orders. This can save you anywhere from $25 to $40 in the US and, I would bet, a little bit more in Canada. Our prices are a little bit higher. Eating out is one of the biggest budget busters. Even one extra takeout meal per week can cost $30 or more. So just cutting out one can save you so much, and I remember when we first started budgeting, going through our bank statements, creating that budget, we soon realized how much we were eating out. We were wasting so much money on eating out. And not just that, we were buying food for our house and then throwing it out because we didn't feel like cooking it, and then it would go bad and we were just eating out instead. When we cut down on that, it was like we gave ourselves a pay raise that helps substantially to help us pay down our debt.
Amber:
So some of the ways that you can combat this are by meal planning for the week. Know what you're going to eat ahead of time. Plan for it. Look in your freezer what do you have? What do you have in your pantry that you can go with. That you know. Make that meal plan, go to the grocery store, buy only what you need for that meal plan. And let me tell you if you're not already using things like chat, gpt, different AI options.
Amber:
You can plug this in and say, listen, I have chicken ribs, yada, yada in my freezer. I have da da da in my pantry. Please create a meal plan for me and a shopping list for items that I do not have for the next seven days, whatever. Go ahead and do that. And, oh my gosh, like you just saved so much time just by using it. It's going to plug in a bunch of stuff and it's going to go this here you go. You could give it dietary restrictions. You could say I don't eat this, I don't eat this, I don't eat this, and it's not going to give it to you in your meal plan.
Amber:
And then make a fun at-home version of your favorite takeout, whether it's pizza, diy chipotle bowls, like whatever it is, and then you have your takeout at home All right. So you can do all kinds of different things, but try to reduce that at least by one time and look at if you're eating out three to five times a week. Maybe try dropping two of them. You will save a substantial amount of money. Another great strategy is to make your coffee at home, especially if you're commuting every single day and you're stopping to buy coffee. That $5 to $10 per cup wow, does that ever add up each week? By dropping your takeout every week, you're gonna save likely anywhere from $30 to $80 a month, if not more.
Amber:
And the third way to find extra money without working extra hours is find items in your house that you're no longer using and sell them. You could easily make around $50 every single week by selling three to five items from your home. You probably have cash just sitting in your house right now in the form of stuff that you don't even use. Go through your stuff, do like a declutter challenge. Declutter the closet, declutter the garage. Spring is here. Start decluttering and then start selling those items that you're not using. Why are you letting them take up space when you could be adding money into your budget, when you could be starting to create that emergency fund with the money that we're finding you today? Now places you could sell these things, like your clothes, shoes, kids toys, gadgets, stuff from your garage tools, things that you're no longer using. You could be selling these things on Facebook, marketplace, poshmark or eBay, offerup or Craigslist. There are tons of places that you can sell these things and, especially now that the weather is getting nicer, you can plan for a rummage sale or a garage sale. Right, you don't need to sell a ton of things. Three to five items can easily bring you $50 or more, depending on the items.
Amber:
Now the fourth way to find extra money is to make one simple phone call or two or three, depending on how ambitious you are. Negotiate your bills. That can save you anywhere from $20 or more every single month. I recently just did this. Last year with our insurance policy, we saved $1,200 plus for the year, and just last month I called our internet company and we're saving $60 a month just by making a phone call and say something like hey, I've been a loyal customer for a while and I'm looking for a lower monthly bill.
Amber:
Are there any discounts, promotions or loyalty deals? Oftentimes they're going to say no, there's no offers, there's no this, there's no that. But the longer you keep them on their phone, the more you may go to like their loyalty department or request that you go to their loyalty department. They're going to offer you a discount. You could also remove some unused services, right? If you don't use XYZ service on your phone plan, why are you paying for it? You can switch to a lower cost plan. We recently did this with our cell phone bills. We were paying $120 every single month for each of our phone bills. We have now dropped it to $40 a month and we're getting better service. We're getting more data, we're getting more services on our phone plan just by switching companies. So, like I said, this can save you 20 plus dollars a month and I would imagine when you start making these phone calls, if you make more than one, you're going to save way more than $20 a month.
Amber:
And number five my final tip to help you find extra money is to have a no spend weekend. If you normally go out and you go and have takeout, or you go to the movies or you go do extra things on the weekends, that is going to save you whatever you would normally spend. Have a no-spend weekend. I would challenge you to do this at least once a month. Spend nothing on yourself, no money outside of the essentials for two days.
Amber:
So instead of going out for drinks or coffee shopping for fun, ordering takeout, try things that are free. Go do free outdoor activities hiking, walking parks. Use gift cards or rewards that you may have that you have been holding on to game nights or movie nights or heck. You can have friends come over for a potluck and each of you bring a dish and you're having a fun night in with your friends, but you're not spending any extra money. A lot of people will save anywhere from $30 to $50 over a no spend weekend. That is an incredible savings.
Amber:
So let's recap you could find over $100 in your budget this month by canceling or pausing subscriptions, skipping takeout just once a month and meal planning, selling three to five items from your house that you have that you're no longer using, negotiating a bill and doing a no-spend weekend. Even if you only do two of these things, you'll be closer to getting that $100 a month extra without going and working even more or finding a side gig. So I challenge you pick just one of these tips and take action today. Let us know in the comments which one you tried and how it went for you. If you found this helpful, make sure to subscribe and leave us a review and share this episode with someone who you think could use an extra $100 in their budget.
Amber:
Now, if you're ready to break free from living paycheck to paycheck, reduce financial stress, build savings and finally pay off debt for good. But you're unsure of where to start, don't worry, we've got you covered. Simplify my Money is sent every Sunday to your email. It's a step-by-step roadmap for better financial control, stress-free money decisions at work, to gain the tools and confidence to tackle your financial goals head on. Sign up for Simplify my Money by clicking on the link at the top of the show notes.
