Ways I have Reduced Spending

Happy Wednesday, friends! I have had this post in my drafts for a while and thought why not finish it off today! The post title is a little misleading because while I have reduced spending in other areas, it has allowed me to spend on things that I would rather spend on – food (at home), clothes for the kids and most of all outfitting the house with furniture and decor!

Books \\

The first thing I did was stop buying books on Amazon. When we moved, I went to the library and got a new card. There are so many books via the app and I read them on my kindle like I always did. Do I have to wait a little longer for newer releases, sure, but I’m also not spending $50 a month on books!

Coffee \\

I started to limit the amount of money I would put on my Starbucks app to $20. I will say this has been easier since moving to the suburbs and not being able to walk to my favorite coffee shops. I also primarily work from home, so I am not tempted to get coffee out. If at the start of the month I have $15 on my account, I only add $5 and that’s it. To put in perspective for January – March of 2021 when I was still WFH and living in the city, I spent $120 at Starbucks. For that same time period this year, I have only spent $25.

Nails \\

The biggest way that I have reduced my spending is doing my nails at home. You may remember this post about press on nails. Well it has been 6 months since my last visit to a salon and I am not going back anytime soon. In fact, I just upgraded a lot of my tools and I am going to start doing gel extensions on myself! The entire kit and tools cost me $60, that is one set of fake nails at the salon without tip. I still love doing press on nails because of how quick it is and how great they look, but I am ready to throw in a little more to my at home nail game. January – March of 2021 I spent $270 on nails (not including a tip) and this year for that same time period I spent $80. What I spent this year is just the press on nails and the new kit from Amazon – only $10 of that is from press on nails, the rest is for the kit that is good for at least 10 nail applications.

Savings App \\

I have used the app Digit for a nearly 1.5 years. I have it linked to my debit account and it takes a little money every day, it’s such a small amount that I don’t even realize it’s leaving. I can add more money manually – for example, I had some birthday money and a few payments from collaborations come through, so I manually moved that over to my Digit account for my “birthday bag.” One of the ways it helps reduce my spending is by taking that money out of my debit account – if that money isn’t in there, I can’t spend it 🙂

Subscriptions \\

Finally, I cancelled subscriptions that I didn’t need any more. Spotify and a few children’s apps were no longer needed and costing anywhere from $5-10 a month. You can easily check if you have any automatic subscriptions on your iPhone in the settings application.

Reducing spending in these little areas has allowed me to spend a little more in other areas. We go out to eat once a week, usually lunch on the weekends and our groceries have gone up but we are also spending far less on eating out. If you ask me to spend towards coffee/books or add something new to the house- I am going to add to the house every single time!

I’d love to know little ways you have been able to reduce spending!