How to Save Money Fast Each Month

Saving money is always a challenge for everyone. It is hard to save just a bit especially when you have a small income.

This applies to me too.

I’m living in a country where you need to be frugal with everything – utilities, food, and even shopping.

This is why I will show you how to save money fast each month on our small income and still can travel to 3 countries on our holiday last year.

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Why you need to save money, why not YOLO all the way?

Previously, I had a YOLO attitude all the way.

Yes, I didn’t have savings, I kept on living from paycheck to paycheck and even have quite some debt on my credit card. Believe me, you don’t want to have the same experience like me.

But then I realize… Back then I was 20 years old and free, no one to take care of and there was no reason for me to save.

But, then eventually you grow up and you see that saving is important. When you need to buy something you want, you can’t because you do not have any savings. When you are in an emergency situation, you don’t have any savings that will save you. You literally don’t have anything.

Think it like this… When I’ll be 50 years old, how will I survive my old days if I don’t have any savings?

Do I really want to work until I die? Nope.. definitely don’t want that.

Do I want to live the rest of my life without concerns of what I buy?

This thought came to my mind and I realized that savings do matter!

Since then, I never stop save and learned how to live a  frugal lifestyle.

That is why also I build this blog. I want to share how you can live a better lifestyle without spending lots of money!

Yes, I’m a no-shamed frugal housewife.

First time I jumped into a frugal lifestyle, I’m ashamed of it Because of what I believe in before. My previous lifestyle taught me that you need to have a luxury kind of lifestyle to boost your confidence. But now I realized THAT KIND OF MINDSET IS SUPER WRONG!

I’m not saying that you can’t spend at all instead try to spend wisely. Try to limit on buying things that you want instead of buying things on what you really need.

Have you ever wondered why some millionaires have a frugal lifestyle? Because they believe in budgeting their lifestyle. By following the same mindset, you can save more money also!

This is why I am not ashamed of it now.

Living frugally does make me and my husband save more money! Do you know how happy my husband and I were to see the amount of money that we saved for months in our account? It was beyond our imagination! Because both of us are spenders and it is hard to keep that amount of money without spending it!

Now, I want to help you also. I know how hard it is to live on a small income. That is why I’m going to share with you how we save money fast each month on a small income:

1. Meal prep

Meal prep is always a good way to save money. When you have food already prepared at home, you’ll be less likely to eat out. Before living frugally, my husband and I always eat out during the week. But now since I tried meal prep, we eat out only on the weekend.

It could be hard when you first do meal prep but when you already get the hang out it. It saves so much time per day plus saves you tons of money. Check out my post on How to Save Money with Meal Prepping for Beginners.

If you are wondering where you can get meal prep recipe, you can check out $5 MEAL PLAN recipes. You’ll get a meal plan for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack for only $5! This is good if you need new recipes to try!

2. Buy what u need, not what u want

When we go out, I always end up buying all the stuff that we don’t need. Now, I always ask these 3 questions to myself before I buy stuff.

1. Do we need it?
2. Can we wait for it or do we need it now?
3. Is it gonna be useful or just clutter our house? 

This questions could also help you in deciding whether or not you need to buy.

3. Buy everything on promo

When we need to fill up our new house with TV, fridge, microwave, etc, we were already on the hunt for months. We looked around for promotions on certain brands and when the time was right, we bought the stuff we need on great deals.

This could also apply when we buy groceries as well. Each supermarket has their own schedule for deals on groceries. Here around my town, it’s usually by end of the month when we can get most groceries with a good discounted price.

You can also do the same for us. You can check when will your local supermarket do great deals? And that is when you do groceries to save you some money!

One thing you can check out also is using Ebates. Ebates will pay you cash backs on everything that you purchase through them. Check out EBATES if you want to save more!

4. Start having a piggy bank

(I used this method to keep all of my small changes such as coins and $1)

This is what I personally do until now. I always put small changes like $1 in the piggy bank or coins in the small wallet. And by the end of the month, I deposit what I saved in the piggy bank into our account and use coins to pay groceries.

This always ends up with more money to save and coins to use so there won’t be money not well spent.

You definitely need to try this method and you’ll see how much money you have saved! Another thing you can do is to save on every $5 per day and you’ll be having more than $1,800++ in one year!

5. Buy in bulk or wholesale.

There are some outlets where you can buy items at wholesale prices like body soap, detergent or even snacks. They usually called Distributor.

Here where I stay, you can easily find distributor’s outlet and buy directly from them and the price they offer could save you more money rather than buy from big supermarkets. Check out where you can find these outlets in your vicinity.

There’s also a great option to save money if you find a place where you can buy an item in bulk. Items you can buy are detergent, tissue, drinks, and many more but be wary of the expiration date on it. The longer the better.

6. Stop your membership and build a home gym

Stop your expensive gym membership and try to do home workouts. If you are like me, signing up for a gym and in the end only come couple times then it’s better to stop rather than wasting your money.

But because I want to do some exercise, I finally decide to take some space in the living room and doing workouts there. I did this and saved my gym membership to our bank account.

Besides that, I found it more convenient to workout at home in the morning before doing everything else afterward rather than going to the gym during peak hours.

You definitely can do it also if you have the same situation as me. You will be so proud of yourself when you see more money in your account.

7. Free or cheap date ideas

Date nights are not always expensive. I know it. We still can enjoy our time together without having to break the bank. If you are curious, you can click on the title link and see if you can try those ideas to save more money to your account also.

After doing that, we decided to use a method that will help us squeeze more money into our saving accounts. This is the formula we used until now to separate our income.

8. Using an app like Digit to help you manage your income per month.

I honestly never used Digit but I get a lot of good review from my friends. They say Digit could help you trick yourself into saving more than spending.

I have to agree that if you have an app that always monitors your spending and saving per month, definitely you’ll be staying on track.

Unfortunately, Digit only available in certain countries. But if you want to check some free apps, you can download an app on your phone like Wallet. This is what I recommend personally because I am that type of person that wants everything stored on my phone.

You can check out Wallet for Android HERE and for Itunes HERE.

This way you’ll be able to track how much you spend for a month and try to tighten up the overspending budget.

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The money-saving FORMULA I used to save money on our small income

This money-saving formula has proven worked for us and I’m sure it can work for you also! You can start by the end of this month. You can also tweak this formula based on how much for food and utilities but always keep around 30% to 40% for savings for best results in saving. If you can save money, you will be more proud of yourself because you made it!

Break down your Income to 30% for Food/Others, 30% for Utilities and 40% for Savings 

It wasn’t stopped just there, we also did some freelancing job that ultimately adds more money to our savings. If you are interested to earn extra $$$, you can definitely check out my post on 20 Legit Work at Home Jobs.

With this principle, we saved enough money to pay the travel expenses for 3 countries (Jakarta, Singapore, and Bangkok) on our holiday last year. How cool is that?!

Now I know that you think this might not work. But you won’t lose anything instead you will see more money in your account. My take is it won’t hurt to try this method. If I can save on a small income for 2 persons, so can you!

Before using this formula, my husband and I were skeptical probably just like you do now.

We thought this method wouldn’t work, my husband told me that we were crazy to book tickets and hotel only without any savings for our travel expenses (food, transportation, and shopping).

But I believe in whatever we do, just put in the best we can and give it a time. After some months applying the techniques that I just shared with you, we see results, like real money results…

We managed to save $2,500 for our travel expenses! Well I know probably you think that it’s not much but for us, it was a miracle. When we do our best and not complain about our journey to save money, instead we keep a positive mind, everything will turn out just fine…

This is what I learned and this is what you need to learn also. This positive mind is what you’ll need to have in saving money.

I know very well that sometimes it’s hard, for me too at some point, I just wanted to give up and spend and when it happens to you, you need to remember why you want to save in the first place.

Do remember, RESULT BASED ON HOW MUCH WORK YOU PUT IN. THE MORE WORK YOU PUT IN, THE BETTER RESULT YOU GET.

Do remember, RESULT BASED ON HOW MUCH WORK YOU PUT IN. THE MORE WORK YOU PUT IN, THE BETTER RESULT YOU GET.Click To Tweet

Hopefully, this post will help you to set your saving goals on FIRE! Read my other post about 7 Money Saving Tips to Travel on a Budget!

Best of luck!