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10 Small Ways to Save Money

Saving money may be something you put off and put off as being too hard, but it’s really not. There are many ways you can make small changes in your life and if you track the savings those changes make and transfer them into a high interest savings account you can be saving for a rainy day, a sunny holiday or a sunroof in your new car.

1 Raise Your Insurance Excess

The excess is the amount you pay if you need to make a claim on your insurance, and the amount of your excess affects the premiums you pay each month. Therefore, if you choose a higher excess on your car, home or health insurance, you can be paying lower premiums and saving money.

2 Pay Off Your Credit Card

If you have a balance of any size on your credit card then you are spending money on a lost cause. You are paying hundreds of dollars each year in interest, on purchases you probably can’t even remember. Therefore, pay your credit cards off as soon as possible to save you paying for something you’ve bought months earlier.

3 Forget the Gym

This doesn’t mean you have to stop exercising, but you don’t need to be paying hundreds of dollars each year to get a work out. Instead, take the dog for longer walks or jogs and get in your cardio workout. Use filled water bottles in your weights routines instead of missing out on expensive dumbbells. Ride a real bike instead of an exercise bike – chances are you have one sitting there in the shed and if you don’t a friend or family member is sure to, and don’t worry about the weather, a hot day, a windy day or a wet day will only add intensity to your workout.

5 Package Your Costs

Call your mobile phone, telephone or internet provider to see if you will be eligible for a discount if you got all of your services from the one place. Some providers will offer special prices for packaged services and this includes high speed broadband, inclusive mobile phone packages .

6 Get a Credit Card With Rewards You Can Use

As a general rule, if you pay your credit card down to zero each month, and make more than $2,000 worth of purchases each month you will be reaping true benefits from a rewards program. Many credit cards will offer you the chance to buy vouchers to department stores or petrol stations with your credit card points. This is a great way to save on groceries and petrol

7 Stop Smoking

Possibly not such a small change compared to the rest of this list, but one which will mean more than just a bit of spare change in your wallet. Not only will stopping smoking save your health and save you the money you would have spent on doctors’ bills down the track, but just add up the amount you spend on smokes in a week or a month and plug it into a high interest savings account calculator to see just how much you could have for your future – now that you will have a healthy future to look forward to.

8 Bring Your Own Lunch

The same goes for bringing your own lunch – add up the amount you spend at the food court each day on your lunch and then calculate how much interest that money could be earning you in a savings account. It doesn’t cost much to cook extra at dinner time to serve as lunch the next day and it’s even easier to move those lunch funds to a savings account.

9 Borrow Your Entertainment

The local library is a free resource and since you pay your council rates you might as well reap the rewards. At the library you can sign up for a card, and get a card for each of the kids to get them involved in choosing books, DVDs, movies, documentaries or magazines to borrow for some free family fun.

10 Leave the Car

Your car can be a bottomless pit of expenses if you use it a lot, so cut back. This could be as simple as driving to the train station and catching the train to work so you can save on fuel and parking. Or you could catch the bus to work every day, or even set up a car pool with colleagues or friends – using your car less can also reduce your car insurance premiums.

Fred Schebesta writes at Savings Account Finder, where he helps people saving money and compare savings accounts.