How to Save Money on a Low Income

With grit and patience these tips will show you how to save money on a low income – you’ll surprise yourself if you stick to a budget and goals!

Recently I wrote about 13 ways to save money on Christmas gifts…it sparked a lot of thoughts in my mind on saving money, spending money and being less materialistic – which sparked this post of how do you save money fast especially when on a low income…it seems overwhelming and impossible…I’m here to tell you it can be done…and here are my thoughts and some how to’s!

I know that the idea of a low income can be relevant – with many pending factors. Some factors being where you live, the size of your family, maybe even the way you were raised and the list could go on. Many feel like if they only made “x amount of dollars more” they could save money…FALSE!

Either way if you feel like you have a low income with no hope of saving money – I’m here to help you and show you it can be done! Get a goal in mind and go for it. When you’ve attained your goal reward yourself with a small reward – not a vacation kind of reward, more like a cup of coffee from Starbucks kind of reward lol.

How can I save $1000 fast?

Maybe your goal is to get an emergency fund of $1000 built up fast. That’s a great goal and a great place to start. You’ll be shocked at how fast you can truly save that amount up, then once you get it saved you’ll have a sense of financial security right away. This can be a first step in getting addicted to saving money!!!!

Maybe you have a bigger or smaller goal – maybe it’s $100 maybe it’s $500 – it really doesn’t matter your goal, just set a goal and aim for it. If you have nothing to aim for you’ll miss every time!!!! With a goal you can now set these next 9 ideas into motion….

How to Save A lot of Money Fast?

1- Create a Budget: The first thing everyone will tell you is to create a budget. Yes it’s true – Yes that’s the tried and true method – Yes it works. So YES create a budget…sometimes a budget takes time to iron out and figure out. So I highly encourage living off and operating on a budget – get that rolling, get that in place and begin to tweak it as needed.

Creating a budget is a wonderful idea and SHOULD be done, don’t get me wrong but sometimes when you need to save money fast you don’t have time to wait on a budget and figuring that out penny by penny. So here are a few ways we’ve found that WORK for us and have been proven to help us safe money quickly.

2- Get Creative: Do you have a hobby or talent you can use to make something, do something or any ability to earn some extra money on the side. Maybe you have a hobby you can make to sell, maybe you have a talent like playing piano and you could try to get your name out for accompanying or playing for background music at parties. Whatever talent YOU can bring to the table get creative and try to sell that.

3- Look around your house: Take a look in your garage, attic, rooms, kitchen – every where on your property and see what you can sell. You could sell your items on Facebook Marketplace, have a garage sale or list on eBay. You’ll be surprised at what you can detach from when it comes to material items when you are trying to save money.

We do this exercise quite often – it’s amazing what we’ve sold or had sitting in our home and didn’t realize the value it had. We weren’t using it and really didn’t see ourselves using it and in on time we had pictures taken and it listed either on eBay or Facebook Marketplace to sell locally. Remember one mans junk is another mans treasure – someone probably is interested in it for the right price and then it’s a Win Win for you both!

4- Go on a spending freeze: Set an allotted amount of time where you will not spend any money. By all means make sure you’ve created your meal plan and bought groceries, paid your bills and you have gas in your car…but don’t go out to eat, don’t buy entertainment, don’t buy clothes, don’t buy extras…don’t buy. It’s a challenge and you’ll be surprised at what you can bank in a short amount of time. You’ll also be surprised at what you can live without and how you can survive a spending freeze!

5- Avoid Entertainment: Consider not going to the movies or renting movies, not going out to eat, concerts or parties. Steer clear and get creative with fun and free things to do in you spare time. Go on a hike, take a walk around the block, go to the library and read a book – get creative and don’t spend money.

6- Eat simple: So if you’ve got a grocery/food budget and you are looking to save even more money consider scaling back your grocery budget. How might you do this, you ask? Eat simple. I know it sounds bizarre but instead of having 5 cereal boxes to choose from just purchase 1. Cook simple meals, cheap meals and eat leftovers!

Also before you make a meal plan for grocery shopping…shop from your cabinets and get creative with what you can cook from what you have.

7- Get rid of subscriptions: Don’t subscribe and cancel any you may have. This monthly recurring bill can eat you up, fast!

8- Ask yourself before you spend: Does spending this money on this item help you attain your goal of saving money? Does it get you to where you need to be quickly? Is it worth it? Can you sacrifice in order to save?

9- Be accountable: Be accountable to someone who can help encourage you to attain your goal of saving. Be accountable to a spouse, friend or family member. Ask them before you spend…ask them before you make a big decision. Talk it through – sometimes talking it through you’ll talk yourself out of the purchase without your accountability partner having to tell you no!!!

If you sell an item (#3) immediately put that money into an account where you can’t easily get your fingers on it! If you go on a spending freeze take that extra money left from your budget that week or month and put it into an account you can’t touch! No one said this is an easy feat. But I guarantee you it’s worth it! Set a goal, get disciplined and get to it!

How much money should you put into savings each month?

This is a very popular question and one many struggle with (I think anyway!) Experts say 20% of your income – I think that’s a very noble goal and I think if you aren’t there already you can be once you get debts paid off and a budget planned. Create a budget that allows for savings – if you can’t do 20% then by all means just do something 3%, 12% 15% – whatever you can do…do it! Just start saving on a regular basis to create a habit.

What other ideas do you have on how to save money on a low income or save money fast?