7 Things You Can Do to Save Money

By Alicia Geigel on April 20, 2022

This article is brought to you by GradGuard. We protect college students and their families from the financial risks of college life, like providing a refund for tuition or replacing a stolen backpack when your school may not. When the unexpected happens, GradGuard’s tuition insurance and renters insurance can help you get back on track.

As a young adult, managing your money and making the best financial decisions can seem like an uphill battle. While you want to enjoy your newfound freedom by making fun purchases, doing so can actually hurt you in the long run.

Saving money doesn’t have to be restrictive, and you can do it in a number of small, effective ways! If you’re a student or young adult that wants some help in the money department, here are seven tips to help you save money!

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1. Cut Down Your Subscriptions: Having entertainment subscriptions is great. You have a variety of viewing and listening options at your fingertips, but how many of your subscriptions are you actually, actively using? To help save yourself money in the long run, cut down your subscription plans. You don’t have to do all of them or the ones that you use, but cancel the ones that keep adding up in your bank account. If you only use Hulu once a month, cancel your plan. If you find yourself only listening to Spotify a handful of times, it’s time to say goodbye to your plan. Doing so will add money back in your pocket, and if you decide you want to try the subscriptions out again, you can always renew.

2. Make a Grocery List (and Stick to It): Grocery shopping without a list can be chaotic and also burn a hole in your pocket. The colors, beautiful advertisements, and even hunger cravings can cause you to buy food items that you don’t need and just temporarily satisfy you. This is fine on occasion, but when it becomes a habit, it can lead to careless spending. To help save money, make a grocery list before you go shopping and stick to it. This way, you have a clear idea of exactly what you need and how much you are going to spend. In addition, consider buying generic items over brand names. Most of the time, there is no difference between the two and generic will cost a lot less!

3. Reduce Your Energy Usage: Using electricity can often get overlooked. We need electricity to live, whether it’s to light our home, to power our internet, or to cook meals. In these cases, using electricity is a necessity, but you can save money by making more conscious choices about how you use your energy. Turn off a light in your room when you’re not in it, switch off fans when you are in one space, take shorter showers, and purchase energy-efficient light bulbs. These are just some of the ways you can reduce your energy usage, which will definitely be reflected on your upcoming electric bill!

4. Utilize Discounts When You Can: There is nothing better than getting an item for less than the original price. Whether it’s through a promotional sale, a coupon you clipped online or in the mail, or a student/military discount, these money-saving helpers can reduce your bill and add more money back to your wallet. The internet makes it especially easy to find discounts and coupons, as just about every major site has discount codes or clippable coupons for in-store and online usage. Just look for the store you wish to shop at along with the keyword “coupon” or “discount” to find an array of options to save money!

5. Get an App to Help You Budget: If you have trouble budgeting on your own and need a more concrete approach to how to spend your money, there are plenty of mobile apps to help you. Finance apps can help with a variety of financial goals, from simple budgeting of bills to even investing. For instance, Mint is user-friendly and uses your personal bank information to track your spending. This includes bills, credit card payments, subscription services, or any other spending such as grocery or clothes shopping. Another app, Pocket Guard, uses data from your debit and credit cards and shows you how much money you have versus what you spend. Regardless of your situation, there is an app for you!

6. Sell Items You Don’t Need or Want: You can buy and sell just about anything online nowadays, which is awesome for people like me who have a bunch of useless junk lying around. If you have collectible toys from your childhood, clothes that you don’t wear, books collecting dust on your shelf, etc. consider selling them online! There are plenty of sites to sell on, with the most popular being eBay, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and Poshmark. Not only will you be effectively downsizing, but you’ll also be making a quick buck!

7. Ditch Fast Food and Coffee Trips: As a student or working person, buying fast food and coffee on the go is convenient when you don’t have the time to do it at home. Whether we’re going out to bars with friends on the weekends or buying takeout for the third night in a row, these seemingly small purchases add up. So, stop eating out and cut ties with your favorite coffee place, because all this is doing is putting a hole in your wallet. Instead, consider making your favorite coffee beverages or lunch meals at home. While this may take an extra 10 or 15 minutes of your time, it will save you money in the long run!

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Image via Pexels

Managing your life and finances is not easy, but thankfully there are a handful of ways to save money and regain control of your spending. GradGuard is just one of those ways to help you budget and save money at the same time. GradGuard provides college students with insurance coverage for a number of things, ranging from tuition to rent to even personal items. Whether it’s using coupons, making a grocery list, or GradGuard, you are covered!

It’s no secret that college costs a lot of money. Make sure your investment in higher education is protected with GradGuard. Our affordable tuition insurance and renters insurance plans are specifically designed for college students. Customizable plans make it easy to protect your tuition, room and board, laptop, bike, and so much more.

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