5 Sneaky Ways You Can Spend Less Money

By Tom Jager, ADP Contributor

Saving money isn't much fun when it feels like you're reducing the quality of your life by sacrificing things you enjoy. For example, if you had to choose between a new iPhone and saving money, chances are you’d go for the gadget because that’s what you really want. 

Unfortunately, most of us have a difficult time combating the urge to spend, so we end up with zero or an insignificant amount in savings. 

In this article, we’re going to learn how to resist the urge to spend money by using mental tricks. No more impulse purchases and overspending!

1. Pocket Your Fives

Saving every five dollar bill you get can be an easy way to save money without significantly affecting your ability to buy. Most people see such small bills as perfect cash for spending, but what they miss is the fact that saving them is just as simple and painless. 

This trick has already proved to be effective to accumulate some impressive sums. For example, former Boston Globe journalist Marie Campagna Franklin started saving every $5 bill she got, and 13 years later she had $40,000.1 

Once the fives reached $100, she put them into a savings account to avoid spending. You could do the same, and this method likely won’t have an appreciable effect on your budget.

2. Wait a Day before Making a Purchase

Have you ever been in the situation where you saw a product you liked, you bought it immediately, but in a week or so after that you realized that you should’ve spent that money on something more practical or important? In some cases, the purchase is simply useless, so you shouldn’t even have spent that money at all.

If that’s something that has happened to you, it could be beneficial to create a mandatory waiting period for all your new purchases, say, above $50. For example, if you see something you like, instead of buying it immediately, try waiting for at least a day so you can think about it. You can ask yourself some questions, such as whether you you really need that product, and if its benefits outweigh the cost for you in the long term.

As a result, you may be able to avoid a lot of impulse buys. 

3. Unsubscribe from Marketing Emails

You may have grown accustomed to receiving multiple marketing emails, so much so that you don't even think twice about it. But let's say you receive two emails a week from the same company. This means that if you’ve subscribed to receive emails from just five brands, you may be getting 10 emails with sales and discounts per week!

Clearly, that’s a lot of temptation, and you can avoid it by unsubscribing from these emails, especially from the stores you spend the most money at. Just look for an Unsubscribe link in the email (it’s usually located at the bottom) and let the brands know that you no longer wish to receive offers from them. 

4. Have a “No Spend” Day

How about making one day a week dedicated to studying, spending quality time with the family, watching a movie, cooking, or just resting—but not going out and buying things? This could be your “no spend” day, and it can help you to save a lot of money by focusing on other things that matter. 

5. Pretend That You Make Less

Yes, this is a legitimate technique that could be huge for you. For example, you can set up an automatic transfer of money from your checking account into your savings account and pretend that no transfers are being made.

This means that you’ll be blinding yourself to your true income, but it may just work by setting the upper limit of spending and making some part of your money unavailable for purchases.

Conclusion

Changing the way you think about spending money could be a powerful strategy that could help you to save a lot. Feel free to use the above tips to avoid overspending and increase your savings, and you might see results in just a week! Overall, you’ll realize that you can easily combat the temptation to spend and become a much more effective money saver than you ever thought you could be.