The 5 Best Resources for Saving Money & Budgeting

1. Spending tracker

I can’t live without a spending tracker to keep track of every penny I spend. It’s basic and does the job. It was free on the app store. Just go to your app store and type in “spending tracker” and it will come up.

You can set your budget and every time you make a purchase or spend money you can add it in. If you forget to add it in, you can do so at a later date.

You can divide up all of your purchases into categories so you get a snapshot of where your money goes and what to cut down on… usually drinks at the pub! You need to keep track of your spending to keep yourself accountable and informed.

2. Honey

I love this free resource for saving time and money. People may see advertisements about this on television or elsewhere and it seems too good to be true. I was also suspicious and wondered what the catch was. There is no catch!

Honey is a browser extension for Chrome and it works in the background. I don’t know exactly what it is but I know what it does. Anytime you’re shopping online, Honey will pop up and ask if you want coupons for your purchase.

It runs all of the coupon codes to find one for you until it finds you the biggest savings and then applies it to your cart. It eliminates the need to trawl through pages on Google to find a coupon and it finds better deals than I ever could.

3. TopCashback

Again, it sounds too good to be true, it seems a bit sketchy, but it’s not. It’s a cash-back site. There are a bunch of them. I like this one, which is my personal favorite. The idea of this type of site is that these sites get paid by retailers for you to shop there.

This means that every time you shop online via the TopCashback website, you get a bit of that money back. For example, if I were to order Domino’s Pizza, I’d go to the TopCashback site, type in Domino’s and it tracks the fact that I’ve come through the site.

Then I order the pizza and I’ll eventually get a notification that I received cash back from my purchase. It applies to travel, clothes, food, and more. Shop like this for the holidays. It’s literally free money so why would you say no?

4. Loyalty cards

There was a time in my life when I had over 30 loyalty cards. It was just ridiculous. I’m more selective now and not all loyalty cards are created equal.

Sometimes you get points for every cent you spend using the loyalty card and they accumulate so you can get something free with the points. Some cards have “card-only” deals where you get a great discount but only if you have a loyalty card.

Some places have great online coupons for loyalty card holders. It’s worth it if you shop somewhere often. At the place where I have my nails done, they stamp my loyalty card so I can get a free manicure or nearly free one after I have five of them done.

5. Vinted

Their ads say “Don’t love it? Sell it.” Vinted is a place where you can sell your clothes and home goods. I have purchased some serious bargains on Vinted, like this sweater.

It’s been great for me because I’m trying to make more conscious and sustainable decisions on my clothing and some of those types of clothing brands are pricier. But buying secondhand is a great way to stay sustainable while keeping the costs way down.

So many things I bought still had the tags on them and they were brand spanking new and I got them so cheap. I’ve also sold tons of things on Vinted. 

The best resources for saving money

These were five of my favorite tips on how to budget. Have you used any of them or plan to take advantage of them? Share in the comments below if you have a favorite money-saving resource that’s not on my list.