9 Money Saving Tips for Families

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It is important to control your budget whether you are at home or traveling. Keeping a close eye on your finances will help you put away money for our next trip too. If you have kids (we have two!), you will know this easy equation becomes much more complicated as they grow older. In this article, we’ve written about saving tips that you can easily implement at home to help reduce your spendings and be able to travel more!

Determine Your Family Budget

The number one rule for any savings is to make more money than you spend. This means that you need to know how much you earn and spend each month. Track your earnings easily in an Excel spreadsheet.

It is useful to determine how much money you want to put aside each month. These can be savings for your travel or just a little spare money in case of an emergency. For example, a household appliance breaks down, a pipe gets busted in the apartment, you have some emergency funds before the insurance pays.  It comes handy even if you become suddenly unemployed or you work fewer hours due to the coronavirus or other unforeseen circumstances.

Spend Less or Make More Money

There are two things you can do to tilt your scales in the right direction. Save more money by spending less or earning more. For example, take a part-time job or work from home. For online jobs, we strongly recommend the following sites where you can take smaller projects: Fiverr, Freelancer, Upwork. After a couple of successful ones, the best thing to do is to switch working directly with the clients.

How to Save Money at Home? Saving Tips

Buy Second-Hand Items

Fortunately, there are more and more shops to buy used clothes and other products worldwide. This is extremely important for families, but you can save significant amounts as a single person as well.

Kids are growing really rapidly, and purchasing all items newly would put a huge burden on families. Especially when you have a baby, shop smart. Buy crib and pram second-hand, and you can look for clothes and toys in thrift stores as well.

It is important to mention that car seats and safety helmets are not safe to buy used. They have an expiry date, after that, the producer can’t guarantee the promised protection as their structure can deteriorate with time, even if they haven’t been involved in an accident earlier.

Of course, older children may be protesting against second-hand clothes or toys, but if they grow up in this environment from an early age, they are much more likely to accept that they can’t get everything new and this way they may get toys that the family can’t afford otherwise.

In addition, you may want to buy items on a second-hand basis, such as furniture or kitchen equipment, as well as household machines. Only your own expectations and comfort limits you. Browse Facebook groups and local ads if you are looking for something and want to get one in the near future.

Imagine, here in Finland there is a special word for those who regularly go to second-hand shops. So beware, this too can be overdone as well 😉

 

Exchanges and Gifts

The cheapest way to get a used product is to exchange them or get them for free. We also received uncountable clothes and toys from acquaintances and relatives, and sometimes even our neighbors or strangers gave away some.  Giving is also important. We often offer our not used items (clothes, furniture or kitchen utensils) to those in need. There are local FB groups for this purpose, so we just post the item(s) and usually in a couple of hours someone would like to pick it up.

 

Meal Planning and Smart Shopping

It’s surprising how much you can save by planning ahead of time what you will eat next week. This is undoubtedly useful during the quarantine and self-isolation times because you don’t have to run to the store every other day for an item or two, so you don’t need to meet with other people that often. In ‘normal’ circumstances, you’ll save tremendous time as well.

First, make a list of the foods you need to prepare next week, and put next to them the ingredients you need to buy. This is mainly about fresh vegetables, fruits, meat, or non-perishable products that you are running out of.

Go to the shop, and get the items from your list. Not only you save money as you buy items you really need, but you’ll save time too. You’ll spend less time in the shops (no wandering around while thinking of what to cook).

Buy Discounted Items

This is true for non-perishable foods (see the previous point), but it is applicable to other items, such as household appliances, gifts, furniture and more. If you know you would need something in the near future, write it down. When you see it on sale, buy it. Simple as that.

Be Minimalistic

Experiences are more important than objects – at least in most cases. Minimalism is becoming more and more popular for a reason. Try not to accumulate cute (but not usable) items that are otherwise useless (and try not to gift them either), because they will only catch dust in your apartment. It’s much better to give an experience as a gift too. It can be a visit to a local restaurant, attractions or a bigger trip with your loved ones.

So how do you get started on this? For example, consider what you haven’t used in the last two months. Or half a year, maybe a year. You probably don’t really need most of those things. Of course, there are exceptions like seasonal clothes (winter overalls or swimwear).

Kids can do better too if they have fewer toys, but they can play more creatively than if they don’t know what to touch in a crowded nursery.

Minimalism in handy when traveling.  We had to reduce our belongings tremendously a couple of times during the last decade(s) when moving overseas (for example to Canada or Singapore). It helped a lot preparing for a longer journey (Norway, Finland) as well, as the space in our motorhome is rather limited for a family of four.

Another example is our budget Brazil trip. We have been backpacking for a month with our small (twenty-thirty liters) backpacks. You don’t need to pay extra for your luggage and don’t need to carry useless weight for weeks. Win-win.

Save on Subscriptions

Phone bills, internet, Netflix, Spotify, Cable… just to name some of the most popular monthly subscriptions. Sit down in the evening and discuss what you really need and you use regularly. Now that (almost) everyone sits at home and works from home, you may not need all internet subscriptions, or better to cancel your gym membership. It is also worth looking into whether it is worth switching to another provider. You can compare packages of home and car insurance as well.

Library Instead of a Bookstore

Although buying a new book is always a great experience, it is often enough to just borrow it from your nearest library because you only want to read it once.

 

Economical Solutions for Your Home

Now that you spend a lot of time home, take a look around the apartment. Do you have a faucet that drips sometimes, or does the toilet tank occasionally drain on its own? You can’t even imagine how many liters of drinking water they use in a month if they aren’t fixed. Repair them if you can.

Reusable Products

Disposable products are often expensive, even though they don’t seem like that at first. What’s the easiest way to start using reusable items?

In the kitchen, ditch the paper towels and use cloth rugs. You can have a couple of extra from them and wash them when needed. The same goes for handkerchiefs. You will never run out of them.

But we can also talk about soft drinks and other packaged products. Drink (more) water 🙂 from the tap, and prepare more homemade snacks instead of buying everything packed. You will save money and help the environment meanwhile.

Families with small kids can think about washable diapers and wipes as well. It is not as hard to clean them as they may seem at first.

 

Cheap Home Entertainment Tips

Movie Nights at Home

Instead of going to the cinema, you can arrange movie nights at home. For example, each week a different member of the family chooses a movie to watch. You can do something healthy to snack together to have a real cinema experience.

Here we write about our favorite travel movies if you need some inspiration.

Boardgame Party

Boardgames are fun for any age, and you don’t need to have a huge group to have fun. Several games are suitable for two players as well. I still miss our weekend-long Carcassone battles (I think we have too many accessories 😀 ).

Virtual Museum Tours

Visit a museum online. In the time of the crisis, many world-famous museums offer virtual guides, so you can admire and learn about famous paintings, sculptures, exhibitions from your chair.

In this post, we wrote about virtual tours you should check out.

 

 

 

 

 

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