10 Frugal Tips for Saving Money You May Not Have Heard Before

1. Bi-weekly mortgage payments

We will start big with money-saving tips; the first is making mortgage payments bi-weekly.

What this means is that you make a mortgage payment on an automatic schedule every month. If you were to take out that money and pay the same amount every second week, it would affect the interest you're paying over time.  

You'll have an extra mortgage payment by the end of the year. That extra payment accumulates a lot of money throughout your 15 or 30-year mortgage. 

2. Subscriptions for food and household goods 

If you calculate the cost of things you regularly buy or the things you need to keep your household going, you can get many opportunities at Walmart and Amazon to go ahead and subscribe for those and save money.

Do the math because we're saving hundreds of dollars on essential paper goods and groceries alone by subscribing for months and months.

3. Cut out your Wi-Fi 

This may be an extreme example for some if you work from home or if you're like me, uploading large videos to the internet weekly or daily. It may not be for you, but for most people, a 5G cell phone or hotspot can accommodate everything your family needs regarding your internet subscription.

You can use an unlimited cell phone plan, which is just 15-20 dollars a month if you're in a great area with excellent coverage.

The average Wi-Fi cost for a household is $149 per month, which can save you more than a thousand dollars each year if you cut that out of your budget.

4. Bring your food

This can happen so often when you need a snack or a drink, and you're out there traveling or at work. You spend that extra dollar or two on a cup of coffee or a water bottle. 

I always bring a water bottle with me, and I save tons of money over time by just having water from the fountain or coffee that I made at home. I intend to bring my snacks to the movie theater. Having your food and snacks can save you tons of money. 

5. Consider driving

Consider driving and enjoy the journey. There's a high demand right now for travel and flights, and if you're looking at flying somewhere where you could drive there easily in a day, it will save you hundreds of dollars. If you travel a lot, it can save you thousands over a year.

6. Shop at wholesale stores 

I'm a big fan of Costco, and we save thousands of dollars every year by buying in bulk. You don't even have to have a membership. You can have a member you know buy gift cards to avoid paying that annual fee and just let you shop for the gift card.

7. Try intermittent fasting 

This is thinking outside of the box when it comes to money-saving tips. This could be a great solution for you to get healthy, and if it's right for you and your doctor's cool with it, then it could be a great way to save money just by simply skipping breakfast.

A person will save 1,800 dollars annually just by skipping breakfast.

8. Move closer to work 

I can't understand people that commute for an hour or more. It seems like a huge waste of time and money. You can eliminate your commute by working at one of many jobs that have you working from home. You're going to save time and money.

9. Get your inventory back to zero 

You can make a meal plan based on what you already have. This will look like going into your pantry, looking at all your food, and coming up with recipes of what you've already got stocked away that you've just seen getting older and older. 

As the months go on, you can shop your closet. If you look inside your closet and you're looking for clothes for the next season, you may be surprised that there are some things in there that you've never even worn, and that's an opportunity to look at what you've already stored away to use.  

As you look through your closets, look for opportunities to re-gift items. If you've got something brand new that you've never used and got someone's birthday coming up, it's okay to give them something that still has the same value as if you bought it off the shelf.  

10. Clean up your online money footprint 

Start by deleting your shopping apps. This is a great thing to do after the holidays and before summer because so many of us are getting into habits of just opening up the Target app and buying something there rather than knowing whether or not it's a better price at Walmart or Costco.

The second trick is to unfollow those money-trap influencers. If you were following someone's Instagram account that is always telling you about different clothing and the price of those keeps going up and up, it's time to go ahead and unfollow them. See if it affects your bank account.

Remove your credit card autofill information, too, so it's one step more difficult to make that purchase.

Another way to do this would be to add things to a cart and give yourself at least 24 hours before you hit that purchase button. In that amount of time, that impulse buy may not look as good by the time you get to the other side of those 24 hours  

Frugal tips for saving money

Spending and saving intentionally can save you thousands of dollars a year. What frugal tips for saving money have worked for you? Share in the comments below.