What are some unconventional ways you’ve found to save money without sacrificing quality of life?

8 comments

1. Just don’t spend unnecessarily. Spend on stuff that really improves your quality of life. Jus don’t be a Sheep.

2. The answer is to simply make more money. It’s good to lower your total living expenses, but you need to increase your cash flow.

3. I kinda started to only eat at home, rice and meat only with small amount of fruits you can say that my quality of life improved but I don’t think this extends for the majority of peoples.

4. I have an auto deposit every time my check cashed into a savings. So it just feels like a car payment or bill. I don’t look at that I have to go to a different bank to pull out. This way it’s more effort to take the money out for shit I don’t really need. If I need it I can get it. But it’s more effort to go drive to the bank. But after a year you would be surprised what you have when you don’t look at it. Coming from a person that like to spend my money. There is an adjustment period where I auto deposit too much where every month I was struggling to keep money in my checking.

5. Learning to cook

6. As other people have said, cooking at home. But also buy store brand stuff. It’s just as good most of the time and half the price. At my local grocery, lays potato chips are 4 dollars a bag. The off brand are 2. Little stuff like that adds up.

7. Find an insurance agent and shop out rates every year for auto/motorcycle.

   I change insurance providers almost yearly and the price almost always goes down (versus up if I don’t switch).

8. Not driving modern cars. It’s mind boggling how **expensive** modern cars are to drive. The total cost of ownership for the 85 F150 my parents bought for me in 2007 for $500 is….about 300 bucks. That’s everything. Fuel, insurance, maintenace, what few repairs it does need, EVERYTHING. Something like that…straight six, stickshift, simple, robust, overbuilt and understressed…it may not have the bells and whistles of what people like these days(All inclusive list of creature comforts: Air con, Defrost, FM radio), it sure as shit ain’t winning any drag races, but on the flip side it costs me less to get around in total than just the banknote of a typical used car these days. It’s reliable as hell, it’s simple and easy to work on, parts cost nothing, maintenance items cost nothing(Goodyear Wranglers for it are 100 bucks a corner and last 75k miles!), insurance is 25 bucks a month, it gets the same 18-20mpg modern ecoboost F150s get(Hooray 4.9l/4spd manual)…it’s great.

   Oh, and it’s paid off. That’s a huge help as well.

   Of course it also helps that what I want in a vehicle is perfectly represented by that old truck.I don’t care about fast, I don’t care about NHTSA star ratings, the only creature comforts/gadgets/tech I want are aircon, defrost, FM radio, I want a manual trans, and I want something old school. That old truck ticks all the boxes. So hey, not only do I save money in a bit of an unconventional way, but I fucking love what I drive! I’m in no hurry to replace it and if I ever do buy another vehicle it will be even older still; a sedan from the 1940s or 1950s is pretty high on my want list right now.