Things to Stop Buying In Order to Save Money

If you’ve been reading my blog, you may know that I have been planning for my wedding! If any of you have ever planned a wedding, you know that weddings are expensive!

Over the last year, I have been able to save tons of money for my wedding. Even shocked myself! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a great saver but combining weddings and maintaining a somewhat similar lifestyle requires work and intention!

I’ve never been a fan of changing up my lifestyle drastically to save money. So over this last year, I’ve still been able to travel (been to Indonesia, Spain, Portugal, Thailand and even took a recent trip to Disney World!) and maintained other aspects of my lifestyle!

If you read my blog, you may know that I talk about different strategies for saving money. One of the things that has helped me save over the last year has been cutting out unnecessary spending.

Yes, I completely stopped buying certain things and and it has made all the difference. I’ll talk about them all below…

Just looking for some quick resources? Check out these FREE apps to help you save more money and reduce your spending.

1. Swagbucks ($5 welcome bonus by signing up using my link)
2. Drop (Sign up here for 5,000 drop points)
3. MyPoints (Get $5 for signing up using my link)
4. Survey Junkie
5. Trim Financial Manager

Make sure to read through the rest of the post to learn more about how they can help you save money!

1. Earn Gift Cards to Reduce Your Spending

Okay, this first pointer isn’t exactly about what I stopped buying butinstead its what I did in order to NOT completely rid myself of everything I LOVE!

In order to reduce the costs of some of my daily Starbucks runs and my Uber rides, I earn FREE gift cards using Swagbucks!  I absolutely love this platform because it allows me to earn points doing things that I naturally would do such as shopping. I’m able to earn more points in my spare time by watching videos, surfing the web and completing surveys.

Once my points start accumulating, I’m able to redeem them for gift cards to some of my favorite stores and services such as Starbucks, Amazon and Uber. In addition to these companies, you can get gift cards to companies such as Walmart, Target, Sephora and much more. Check them out HERE!

I let my points accumulate enough where I can redeem $25-$100 gift cards!

👉 Sign up for your FREE Swagbucks account HERE and earn a $5 welcome bonus

🌟 Remember to verify your email so you can start earning your gift cards today!

Other Ways to Get Free Gift Cards

If you’re excited about getting FREE gift cards, other sites I use to snag gift cards to places like Amazon, iTunes and Best Buy is with Drop, MyPoints and Survey Junkie!

This is one of my favorite savings tips because it allows me to keep my current guilty pleasures while being able to save money. Downloading multiple apps will allow you to stack your rewards and SAVE EVEN MORE!

Plus all of the memberships are COMPLETELY FREE so why not save and earn?!

2. Cutting Cable to Save More

Can’t get enough of the 500 channels you have on your TV? I hate to break it to you but my cable bill was one of the unnecessary expenses that I got rid of. I haven’t looked back since!

Our cable bill reached a whopping $220?! I was tired of paying for channels that I didn’t even watch. The main reason we had our cable package is due to my fiancé need to watch live sports, especially his Philadelphia Eagles!

If you’re tired of your own bill but are not quite ready to say goodbye to cable, you can use TRIM which is a FREE service that will help negotiate and lower bills such as cable, internet, cellphone and subscription services. See exactly how users are SAVING TONS of money with this app!

Since my fiancé only watched sports and I was only bing watching on my favorite TV show, we decided to get rid of cable altogether. We found that Hulu has a LIVE TV package that provided all the sports channels he needed! So we said GOODBYE to our $220 cable bill and hello to spending $40 a month! We don’t miss cable at all!

If you don’t need live sports, Amazon Prime offers a video subscription where you have access to thousands of movies and TV episodes. This also comes with FREE two-day shipping.

👉 Try a FREE Amazon Prime 30-Day Trial HERE!

Something to do Outside of Cable TV

Okay, you’ve probably had cable most of your life so I know getting rid of it may be tough to imagine. When you find other things to occupy your time with, it won’t be as bad as you think!

For me, blogging has become one of my favorite activities to occupy my time. Not only is it fun but I’ve save tons of money since I started! We’re all here to save money right?

Imagine all the things you can do with the extra money! Maybe save for a wedding (like myself), pay off debt, vacation or save money for other financial commitments. The sky is the limit!

I was completely clueless just a year ago about how bloggers made money! Even more clueless on where to get started! No need start like I did, I created a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to start blogging and how to set up your website!

You can start blogging at a discounted rate of $2.95 a month AND receive a FREE domain name by signing up with Bluehost!

3. I Stopped Going Overboard On Personal Care Products

I’m a bonafide product junkie! Well I use to be, but I went to “PC Anonymous” to get help for my addiction.

I often found myself buying tons of shampoos, conditioners and lotions just to “test them out”! If it had a great smell, it was in my basket. Great logo? It was in my cart. If the reviews had raving fans, it was scheduled for a Amazon Prime 2 day delivery to my house.

I was EASILY spending $50-80 on products that just piled up in my bathroom cabinet. I have products that I haven’t used in YEARS. However, I kept buying more and more. Although, I still buy this item over and over, I have stopped my overall personal care hefty spending.

🌟 VALUE TIP: If you spend and lot on personal care or shop on Amazon like I do, you can grab FREE Amazon gift cards by filling out short and EASY surveys with Survey Junkie

👉 Sign up for Survey Junkie here! It’s COMPLETELY FREE and you can start earning gift cards today!

4. Dining Out Too Much

This one hits HARD! When my fiance and I totaled up the amount we were spending on dining out, the total came out to MORE than the amount of our MORTGAGE! Yes! I said it!

At the time, neither one of us was bringing a lunch to work so dining out included breakfast, lunch and dinner! Averaging $10 a meal. For the two of us, that’s $420 a week! For a year, if we kept dining out daily, it would have costed us $21,840.

Luckily, we stopped ourselves! Some. We still dine out but not for every meal. My fiance is fortunate to now have a job that provides his lunch. As for me, I meal prep and eat at home as often as I can.

If you haven’t already, take a look at your “Dining Out” expenses. You might be just as surprised!

The $5 Meal Plan

If you never meal prepped or it sounds too overwhelming, I recommended the $5 Meal Plan.

This plan takes all the guessing work and research out of meal prepping on a budget and its only $5 a month!

Every single week, you will receive a meal plan and shopping list with ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS food! Not only is the food good, but its simple to prepare and cheap!

Meal prepping has saved my fiance and I over $1000 a month on food! It can drastically increase your savings!

Not exactly sure if this $5 Meal Plan is right for you? No worries!

You can test it out with a FREE 14-day TRIAL! If it’s not a good fit for you, cancel at anytime with out ever spending a dime!

5. Grocery Shopping With Intention

Now that you’re going to cut back on dining out and grocery shopping more, you may potentially find yourself impulsive shopping.

Its something about grocery shopping that makes you want to try something new and forget your overall purpose of coming to the store.

I know I have walked out of the store a dozen times without the main thing I came for.

With this said, it is important to come with a list. The list provides purpose and it helps you focus and avoid shopping for items that you don’t need. The things that you don’t need will eventually go in the trash and waste the money that you’re trying to save.

Get CASHBACK Grocery Shopping Using Ibotta

In addition to writing a list and resisting the impulse buying, we also use Ibotta to earn FREE cashback on our grocery bill!

Before we shop, we see what offers are available. We shop offers that we would naturally buy. Once we have purchased the item, we snap a picture of our receipt using the app and within 48 hours, our FREE cashback is deposited.

If we were going to buy the item anyway, why not get cashback for it?

You can sign up for Ibotta here and get $5 as a welcome bonus!

6. Buying Makeup

The many different makeup tutorials on Youtube had me spending too much on makeup. Youtube owes me some money!

I was going in and out of Sephora and Mac buying products that I’m still not exactly sure what to use them for. All to get the exact look the beauty blogger perfected.

I haven’t completely abandoned makeup. I still have items that I just can’t break myself away from but I have found cheaper brands like this one that still have great quality.

🌟 When I spend on makeup, I use Drop to earn cashback EFFORTLESSLY! It’s 100% FREE to download. Simply shop as you naturally would and redeem your points for stores like Sephora and Amazon!

👉 Check out my full review on Drop here! Sign up through my link and use promo code 0fq2f to claim $5 (value equal to 5,000 Drop points)

7. Bottled Water

My love for bottled water was getting a little bit out of hand. Maybe it was my love for convenience?

Grabbing bottled water before I left the house and on the way to the gym was a thing of mind. If you’re out and about, purchasing water can cost you $2 and this can add up. I purchased a reusable water bottle and a quality water filter.

Now I’ve ditch this added expense.

8. No more Travel-Size

Every time I leave for a trip and even when I go to the gym, I purchase travel-sized products that I grab and go.

These travel-size products come in handy for flying and in my every day life. I don’t have to lug around bulky products that add weight to my gym bag.

But along with convenience comes costs. For the cost of these products, it doesn’t amount to the amount that I’m getting. I recently purchased reusable travel bottles in order to save money. They allow me to purchase larger containers that cost less per ounce.

9. I cut off my subscriptions!

My past was filled with magazine subscriptions, fan clubs and wine clubs. After a while, I realize that all these subscriptions were only making me spend more money on things that I wasn’t using each month.

Now, one of the only ongoing subscription services I keep is this one because I need them and they need me. Not really….but that’s what I like to tell myself!

Trim helps negotiate your bills and cancel your subscriptions

Do you have some subscriptions that may need canceling? Use Trim Financial Manager to help you EFFORTLESSLY save more money.

Trim will help you cancel your subscriptions and negotiate your bills. Who doesn’t want lower bills?! It will also fight unnecessary fees. Its FREE to DOWNLOAD!

👉 Sign up with TRIM for FREE right here! You can start saving money today!

10. Paying for Music Downloads and Apps

Most things that you find on the Itunes app store is fairly reasonably. It’s those fairly reasonable things that get you!

A $1.99 game download, NOTHING! Until you’ve downloaded a couple of songs, games and other apps all in the same week. Then that $1.99 download means much more.

These couple of downloads were adding up for songs I wasn’t listening to and games I wasn’t playing!

🌟 I use Drop to earn FREE Itunes Giftcards It’s 100% FREE to download. Simply shop as you naturally would and redeem your points for stores like Itunes.
👉 Check out my full review on Drop here! Sign up through my link and use promo code 0fq2f to claim $5 (value equal to 5,000 Drop points)

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