How to Save Money in 2023: 7 Ways to Stretch Your Dollars Further

1. Have a dream session

The first thing we are doing to help save money in 2023 is having a dream session. You could call this a budget meeting, a goals meeting, a year meeting, or whatever you want. This is about dreaming about what kind of life you want and how you will get there.

What is your big goal? We have a big goal, and there's no way we could do that in a year unless our financial circumstances change dramatically, but we want to have that big goal in mind to keep us on track.

Maybe your big goal is saving for a new car. Maybe it's saving for a house. See if you can attach some positive reinforcement to the end of your goal.

2. Debt-free chart

We are tracking our goals on a debt-free chart.

I put the goal on my chart; there are little Tetris pieces to color in. 

It's a great way to track your progress. We have put our big huge honking goal on our chart, and we are starting to chip away at that and trying to strategize about how we can get there faster, which is kind of like a fun game.

Even if you have gotten out of consumer debt, maybe you're trying to pay off your house. So turn your savings goal into a game by tracking that big goal and making sure there is a reward. 

3. Focus on the gap

This year, to help us save money, we will focus on the gap. The gap I'm talking about is the difference between income and spending. I want to pay attention to both ends of that gap. 

I want to see what we can do to increase our income and optimize what we're already doing. 

My husband has some training that he can do for work at home, which can be a great little side hustle. It's just maximizing his opportunity that he already has to make a little extra money. 

I want to optimize our Airbnb and make sure the pricing is right. That is one of the side hustles that we already do, and we want to see how we can ensure that we are as booked as possible. 

4. Lower expenses

Then we're looking at the other side of the gap, which is lowering those expenses, and for us, it's those unexpected extras and those car repairs we weren't planning for because it's hard to think ahead.

Sometimes we spend money, and then I'm like, wait a minute, there was not a budget category for that, and now we're going to have to pay for it by taking away from our savings goals, especially in the middle of the month. 

I need to be careful about looking at the budget before spending and not just buying things on a whim.

My husband also is interested in looking at each of those fixed expenses, like the car insurance and the phone bill, to see if there's any way to lower those because that would be pretty painless. It also could save us a little extra money. So a little here, a little there. 

5. Budget

Sometimes budgeting is not my favorite activity, especially if it's not going as planned. However, I think it's super important to keep track of what your money is doing and how much you are spending. I was thinking, what if we didn't have a budget? What would that even look like?

Then I realized that when we got our first paychecks, we wouldn't know how much we could save at the beginning of the month because we wouldn't have an estimation of how much we would spend. 

We couldn't work towards our financial goals without a budget at the beginning of the month. So we have our budget cut in two because my husband gets paid twice a month.

When that first paycheck comes in, we calculate how much we need for the budget. All that extra can go into our savings goals right away. If you didn't keep track of that, you wouldn't know that. 

6. Have monthly and yearly goals

Next up is to have goals for your year and your months. 

I do this with my circle chart. 

I write down our specific goals for the year in the goals category. Then each month, I write down the things that will happen that month. So birthdays, because that affects your budget, you need to put that in your budget.

Suppose you must put on those snow tires or pay for your Amazon membership or Mother's Day. We need to budget some gift money for Father's Day or Christmas. 

Have in mind all those things when you're making your budget. You can also put your goals there. You have those specific goals, and they're also time bound by the fact that they're on your circle chart. I am getting better at budgeting because I'm using my circle chart and adding information to it each year. The 

7. Define what is important to you

The last thing I'm working on to help us save money in 2023 is defining what is important for us and what success is. One of the measurements that I'm trying to measure success by is if I was I present with my children and enjoying them for who they are at that moment. 

How to save money in 2023

As we define things that are important to us that are not material, that can help us realign our priorities and help us save money because things aren't what's important in life. Money becomes less stressful when you don't make it the only priority in your life.

Comment below and let us know how you plan to save money in 2023.