How You Can Start Saving

If you’re still living at home, and your parents are flipping the bill on your food, electricity, maybe even your phone and your car if you have one, take full advantage of it. Take that time to save your money and create projects that could generate more income for yourself. Even if you still have some overhead at home (such as I did), it’s still most likely less than you’d be spending out in the world. Thank your parents for covering any of your living expenses. When I got my license, I had to pay a portion of my car insurance. Later, I also would have to pay for my clothes (which I cheated a little by just putting certain clothes on my Christmas list), and I’d pay a portion of my personal electricity use. Was I spending $150 per month on bills when I was 18? Yes, but it was still a fraction of what I’d need to pay to live on my own. This is probably the best way to start saving without needing to work full time, though I always recommend you can work full time if you can. Just don't compromise your education—that’s still important.

I’ve made sure that I always had a source of income since I was old enough to work. I got my first job when I was 16, working in food services. Was it glamorous? Not in the least. But, minimum wage plus maybe a couple bucks in tips per shift adds up quickly. I was also raised in a house that put emphasis on being conservative with your money. We were working-class with two full-time working providers and two teenaged kids—sometimes money could be tight. But the big lesson I learned was essentially: if you’re smart with your money when it’s plentiful, then the tight times won’t drive you insane.

During my junior and senior year of high school, I’d still work 20 or so hours a week. I was up at 4:30, at the bus stop for about 5:45, and I wouldn’t be back until about 6 PM every night. Friday nights I’d work from 7 to 10, and Saturdays and Sundays I’d work from 5 AM to 1 PM, even though I’d regularly work until 3 or 4 due to callouts. So I was pulling in some decent money for a teenager. But there were sacrifices. Some of my peers at school would make less, but come in every week with new clothes, a new phone case, sometimes even a whole new phone or other piece of technology, and all kinds of other things. Now, good for them. If they can afford those things, they’re young and should be allowed to enjoy their money. Sometimes there were kids who made more than I did, and still spent large amounts of their income. So they’d look at me as at best “frugal,” or at worst, “cheap.” But I saved a lot more than a lot of them, even more than some of the kids who either worked more hours or had a higher wage. I sacrificed living like a king with a new iPhone or buying weed for a nice financial cushion that would benefit me in the future.

It’s a very simple rule—the less money that leaves your paycheck, the more you save. So when you’re living at home and playing video games, think about utilizing that time to go make and save a little bit of cash so when you do leave the comfort of the cave, you’re at least a little more financially secure than you would’ve been.

Now, what if you’re already living on your own? What if you have a ton of overhead with rent (or a mortgage), utilities, insurance, etc? How would you save? Well, there are a few things you can do:

1. Find a way to cut back on your living expenses.

For a little bit of context, I grew up in Connecticut, which means I lived in one of the most expensive places in the entire country. These tips could actually go a lot further in other states.

Yes, you should make some cuts. When I moved out of my house, I made sure I had a roommate so the $1,000 a month rent/utilities would only be $500. Instead of two weeks worth of income going to housing, it went down to one week. And my apartment actually had a small guest room, so we could’ve gotten a third roommate and bring costs down even more. One of the first things my roommate and I did was stop paying for cable. I had a Netflix account and he had Hulu Plus and YouTube Red. We split the cost of a Roku and shared the costs of Hulu and Prime (and since I was a parasite on my mother’s Netflix account, we got that for free), and we saved hundreds of dollars in our first year.

I do know people who have turned their health insurance plan from their full-time job into a Catastrophe plan, which has lower premiums and deductibles, but is more leaning towards major health crisis coverage instead of things like prescriptions, precautionary care, etc. A lot of your healthcare would be paid for out-of-pocket for less spend per year on paper. I don’t know how much I recommend that, but that is an option.

Also, going to stores like Aldi or WinCo can save you huge amounts of money. My preference is Aldi though, mostly because it was close. Just bring your own bags and possibly a quarter, since you need to rent the carts. I saved myself $0.25 a trip by having exercised with an old $15 set of dumbbells, so I carried the groceries in the bags, took them out at the register, and placed them back in. It’s a little extra effort, but considering I could get two pound of grass-fed ground beef, two dozens eggs, apples, and hot sauce for less than $30 (which would all last me about two weeks), I was only spending about $15 dollars a week on food, and it was all healthy. If you want to get a bit extreme on this (like I did), you could train yourself to survive on a low-carb Ketosis-style diet since you’d tend to be less hungry, and you’ll also lose weight so there’s a plus. When you don’t crave the excess sugar and processed food, you spend less.

2. Utilize discounts, coupons, and free membership programs.

Just like going to a discount grocery store, go to places that offer major discounts on essential items. If you’re like me and a portion of your income comes from working at your desk at home, you might need pens or invoice sheets or paper, or all of the above. Put the time into researching where you can get some of these things for as little as possible. Amazon is one of the best places, and if you can get free shipping (especially without needing to buy Prime) you’ll be golden.

Also go for promotions. Cell-service companies offer cost-cutting promotions all the time, but sometimes they are a bit tricky with them. If you’re willing to dive in and research all of those plans to see what works for you, and then possibly bounce to another promotion deal when your contract is up, go for it. It may also be smart to completely pay off the remainder of your phone and see if you can just transfer the SIM card, so you’ll save a little bit of money per month without leasing.

There’s also no shame in going to Walmart, or even thrift shops, to find clothes. I bought a little sewing kit for $10 online, and I’ve used it to stitch up jackets and shirts from GoodWill both for me to wear and to sell for profit. That little purchased hasn’t just saved me hundreds of dollars on clothes, but also made me money (which yes some of it went to newer clothes— I do like Levi’s).

3. Work a few extra hours per week.

Yes, the most dreaded part of the money saving process. You’ll probably need to work more hours every week. Let’s say you can manage to live from your 40 hour work week but aren’t satisfied with how much you’re putting away, despite utilizing different saving tips. Try to negotiate working an extra five hours per week, or ten. It’s not fun, but you could now have a more substantial amount of your weekly gross going into your savings account. I worked an addition five hours a week for a while, as well as started a couple business ventures outside of that (more on that later), so I could put a little more money every week into my account.

Eventually those extra few hours really add up. In three months, I had an extra $500 or so saved up, and that’s not including the self-employment work. And it’s not hard to manage that time either. Stay an extra hour per day, come in an hour earlier, or work a short shift during the weekend. And if your job won’t allow it, just get a small part-time position for less than ten hours per week, or however many hours you want. You may not make as much, but it’s flexible and you can save everything.