Have you been wondering why your finances remained unstable until today? It could be because you’re not changing your old ways. Don’t worry—it’s not too late!
If you want to save more this year, check out the best strategies for saving money in 2024.
25 Effective Strategies for Saving Money in 2024
1. Balanced Budget
If you’re asking: How can I save more in 2024? The answer ultimately lies in your ability to create a balanced budget.
What is meant by a balanced budget?
A balanced budget occurs when revenue or income equals or exceeds expenditures. Everyone should know how to create a balanced budget to avoid a budget deficit.
But how do you make a balanced budget?
Many experts recommend the 50-30-20 budgeting method to achieve a balanced budget. This means 50 percent of your income should be allocated for basic living expenses like groceries and housing. The other 30 percent will be allotted for the so-called ‘discretionary’ costs, which include clothing and entertainment-related expenses. Meanwhile, 20 percent of your monthly income should be kept as savings or for paying debts.
2. Cut ‘Big’ Expenses
If you really want to save money, dare to sacrifice. How? Well, eliminate some of your ‘big’ and recurring expenses.
For instance, if you spend a lot on basic living expenses, such as mortgage, phone, and other utility bills, you must decide which expenses you want to eliminate. If it’s impossible to eliminate a particular service, just find a cheaper alternative.
For instance, you can move to a cheaper apartment to save on housing expenses. If not, you can find a roommate—this means the renting expenses will be divided into two. Meanwhile, if your existing phone bills affect your budget, find a cheaper option and update your subscription.
3. Be Tight on Your Must-haves
The best strategies for saving money in 2024 require you to tone down your living standards. To save more, you must have a ‘humble’ lifestyle.
Identify the so-called variable expenses or expenditures you completely control, and consider whether you can stop them or at least adjust to spend less.
For example, you should eat less to minimize your food expenses. If you like to save on clothing, buy secondhand clothes instead. The bottom line is to start living simply, and you will be shocked at how much you can save.
4. Watch out for Desirable but Unnecessary Purchases
If we tackle the strategies for saving money in 2024, we should not overlook discretionary expenses. Discretionary expenses are expenses for consumables, products, or services that are desirable but unnecessary. This includes TV streaming subscriptions, vacations, or luxurious gifts.
Instead of paying for video streaming services, why not look for vloggers who upload your favorite content for FREE? Similarly, you can also borrow books from your local library. Again, you don’t need to spend so much on discretionary items.
5. Pay Your Debts
It’s nice to save money to pay minimum debts; however, it’s better to save more to pay off credit card balances and other debts!
Experts suggest the following methods so you can pay down debts without compromising your budget:
• Snowball—This method requires listing your debts from the smallest to those with the highest interest rates. Settle debts with low interest rates first, and you will be amazed at how it will stabilize your budget.
• Avalanche- The Avalanche method is the opposite of snowball. In other words, you will pay first debts with the highest interest rates.
6. Be Ready for the Unexpected — and the Expected
Also, one of the best strategies for saving money in 2024 is preparing for expected and unexpected events.
Let’s tackle the unexpected first.
We are just humans and can’t avoid emergencies, including health problems, accidents, etc. If you want your budget intact despite unexpected eventualities, save at least three months of your monthly expenses.
So, you will add up your monthly expenses, including variable and debt payments, and multiply the result by three. For example, if your monthly expenses are ₱3,000, you must save ₱9,000 as your emergency fund.
Similarly, you also need to set aside money for expected events. Think of birthdays, anniversaries, and even grand vacation getaways- you deserve the best experience from these events, right? Therefore, start saving today!
7. Improve Your Cash Flow
One of the strategies for saving money in 2024 is increasing your cash flow. This means you’ll find ways to boost your income. There are several ways to improve your monthly income.
For one, you can find high-paying jobs. You can also look for side hustles like part-time teaching, babysitting, or jewelry-making.
When you increase your cash flow, set aside money to deposit in a high-yield savings account. A bank that offers interest rates of about 4% to 5% is a great option. If your existing bank doesn’t provide these rates, consider looking for another bank.
8. Evaluate Your Investments
You must evaluate your investments to determine whether you’re still generating profits or not.
You can assess once a year, regardless of whether you invest in bonds, index funds, stocks, or cryptocurrencies.
9. Limit Your Monthly Subscriptions
On average, Americans spend about ₱13,000 per month on subscription-based services, such as Netflix, Spotify, YouTube TV, and New York Times Cooking.
Can you imagine if you end your subscription to these platforms? It’s a massive savings per month!
So, one of the best strategies for saving money in 2024 is eliminating unnecessary subscription-based services.
We are not telling you to stop all your subscriptions to your favorite streaming platforms, as doing so will compromise your comfort and lifestyle. But if you want to save more money in 2024, just limit them.
10. Save on Groceries (save ₱3,335/year)
One reason why you can’t save money is because you’re wasting money on groceries. This wastage is usually due to buying groceries impulsively.
Remember, impulsive buying of groceries will lead to overspending. Moreover, you’ll find out later that not all the food items you’ve purchased are necessary.
If you have an impulsive buying tendency, you should be mindful the next time you go to the nearest grocery store.
Below are some of the best strategies for saving money in 2024 that have something to do with mindful buying of grocery items:
- Meal plan—Devise a meal plan to avoid overspending and buying non-essential grocery items. Experts recommend a weekly meal plan to track the groceries you need for the coming week. Stick to your meal plan, and you’ll surely save a lot.
- Be creative— Creativity can lead to huge savings! For instance, don’t throw leftover foods if they are still consumable. Instead of throwing, put excess foods in the refrigerator. Just be innovative and cook them the next day. Don’t worry; you don’t need to become a chef to serve mouth-watering dishes for your family.
- Coupons—If you’re serious about saving, watch out for the latest coupons grocery stores offer to their avid customers. Grocery coupons provide huge discounts on select items, which adds to your savings.
11. Saving Hacks for Books, Audiobooks, and More
Did you know you can save ₱1,100 monthly if you stop buying books, audiobooks, and other digital items?
If you love reading books, why not borrow them from local libraries instead of purchasing them?
In the same manner, if you are a big fan of audiobooks or e-books, rent them (digitally) instead of paying for premium copies.
Hoopla and Overdrive are digital library apps that allow users to borrow digital items, including e-books, audiobooks, movies, and music. They also provide online TV streaming and other video-on-demand services.
12. Temp Tweak (save 15% or more on your energy bill)
Are you thinking of the best strategies for saving money in 2024? Consider checking your home’s air conditioning system.
A well-insulated home can keep the temperature inside your house fairly hot for an extended period, and you’ll want this if it’s too cold outside!
In the same manner, in summertime, an insulated home can keep the temperature low inside for longer. This will reduce the energy needed for your house’s air conditioning system to maintain a desirable temperature.
Keeping your home well-insulated can reduce about 15% of your monthly energy bill.
13. Insurance Hacks
Insurance is a vital key to ensuring your possessions are well-protected in times of unexpected eventualities.
Home and vehicle insurance are among the popular types of insurance apart from life insurance.
While the purpose of having insurance is good, unfortunately, it significantly cuts your budget.
Most of the insurance coverage is expensive. In fact, in the U.S., people spend around ₱1,547 on auto insurance, and another ₱1,582 goes to paying homeowners insurance.
But you don’t actually need to buy expensive insurance services to seal your car or home in bubble wrap.
Below are some of the best insurance hacks to help you save more money in 2024.
- Bundle policies—Find an insurance company that offers bundle policies. Insurance with bundle policies usually comes with a discount, especially if you are a long-time client.
- Home improvements- Pick an insurance policy that offers a discount for adding a security system to your home.
- Shop plans—Make it a habit to survey all the available insurance providers before choosing one. By scrutinizing the offers of different insurance providers, you can select the cheapest option that doesn’t compromise the quality of service.
- Ask your agent—It is also recommended to ask your insurance agent occasionally to ensure you’re updated on the latest insurance discounts and offers.
14. Forget Luxurious Habits
We’re all guilty of having a luxurious habit, and we should change this to save more money in 2024.
Below are some of the costly habits that you need to stop as soon as possible:
- Bar hopping—If you regularly bar hop, this can compromise your budget. Remember that the price of alcohol is more than 100 times expensive now than in the year 2000.
- Vaping- While it’s tough to quit vaping, you need to do so if you want to save money this year. Remember that vaping costs double compared to cigarettes.
- Food takeout—If you are serious about saving more in 2024, limit ordering food from food delivery apps. The cost of food delivery, if computed per year, can total up to ₱174,000, and that’s in the U.S. alone. You can imagine how huge your savings will be if you minimize ordering food online.
15. Pause Online Shopping
Just like ordering food online, you should also avoid impulse purchasing different items online. If you allow yourself to buy items you perceive you want instead of the needed ones, you might end up messing up your budget.
In the U.S. alone, 25% of Americans buy items online once a month and spend around ₱302,000 annually. See how big you can save if you avoid impulse or unplanned buying online.
We’re not saying that you deprived yourself of buying things you deem necessary, but it becomes wrong when you buy items online out of wants and luxury.
16. Settle High-interest Debt
Experts also suggest prioritizing paying those high-interest debts as one of the strategies for saving money in 2024. The reason is self-explanatory: you need to settle debts with high debt balances as they can overwhelm your budget.
For example, if you have a credit card with an average APR of 21.19%, you should pay it first before settling your other debts with lower interest rates.
17. Automate Your Savings
Automating your savings is also one of the best strategies for saving money in 2024.
Create an automatic savings plan if you want to save more this year. Automatic savings simply means a particular portion of your salary will be deposited automatically into your account. In this setup, expect your savings to increase continuously since human intervention has already been removed.
We recommend you keep a checking account that will recurringly transfer your savings (automatically) to your savings account.
18. Delete Automatic Billing Info
Another hack to prevent overspending is to delete your personal and bank information on various online shopping platforms, such as Shopee or Lazada.
The main goal of doing this is to remove the convenience of filling out your personal information when buying items online.
Imagine your bank or PayPal information is not synchronized on your computer or phone; you can’t hastily buy things online, right? The hassle it entails would become a deterrence to keep you from impulsively buying unnecessary things online.
19. Save Your ‘Change’
While it could be one of the simplest strategies for saving money in 2024, saving every change you get is an effective technique.
Separate the coins you receive when buying random items like coffee, soda, and other groceries. Make sure you deposit all the coins you get in a piggy bank. When the piggy bank is full, bring it to the bank and deposit the coins in your savings account. If you regularly do this, believe me, you will save a lot of money!
20. Side Hustle
One of the most effective strategies for saving money in 2024 is finding a side hustle. In other words, after your regular working hours, find a part-time job during your vacant time at night.
But before you embark on finding a side hustle, evaluate yourself—your skills and your health. Also, make sure you look for a part-time job that suits your abilities. Otherwise, you can never find a long-term side hustle.
21. Know What You’re Saving for
Pinpointing why you’re saving and how much is one strategy for saving money in 2024. You should identify why you want to save and explore the emotions motivating you to make it happen.
It doesn’t matter if your reason is too personal as long as your emotional faculty fuels it.
If you’re emotionally motivated about something, you’ll likely do your best to reach your goal despite the odds.
If you want to save ₱50,000 to start your own business, hit it! Make a plan, stick to it, and discipline yourself to reach your goal no matter what happens.
22. Weekly Budget Plan
Creating a weekly budget plan is also included in our list as one of the most effective strategies for saving money in 2024. Although you can craft a monthly budget plan, we suggest you stick to a weekly one as this is more specific.
Basically, you’ll just have to compute your weekly expenses, which include fixed costs such as mortgage/rent, monthly recurring charges, utility bills, and loan payments. Then, divide the sum over four weeks, and that will be your target savings weekly.
23. Forget Your Credit Cards
We also include mind tricking as one of the best strategies for saving money in 2024. Particularly, we recommend you intentionally ‘forget’ that you have credit cards to save more in 2024!
It’s not literally the act of forgetting, but you just have to trick your mind that you don’t own a credit card so that you will be more mindful of your spending.
24. Use a Budget App
The power of technology can also be used as one of the strategies for saving money in 2024.
What to do?
Find a budget app on Google Play or App Store to help you create a better budget plan.
Basically, budget apps help track your expenses; if something goes way off the threshold, you will be reminded to evaluate your spending habits.
25. Ask for Help From a Buddy
Before we close our list of the best strategies for saving money in 2024, let’s not forget the importance of finding a ‘savings’ buddy.
Find someone eager to save money, and discuss how you will cooperate to ensure you can save more this year.
If you feel demotivated, your savings buddy should come to the rescue and remind you why, in the first place, you plan to save more in 2024.
Takeaway
If you are determined to save more money in 2024, follow our recommendations.
But of course, we can only do so much!
The decision is yours—whether you are serious about saving more this year or it’s just another bluff! Remember, no person other than YOU can help you save more money in 2024!