Are you looking for ways to save money in a short time? I’m glad to share an experience and tips that can help a lot of people save great amounts.

My husband and I have been together since college, and we had our fair share of, let’s say, struggling times. We got married at a pretty young age and it was a moment when he was laid off. At that time I had a low-income job that couldn’t help us that much. I was the only one working, and we needed to pay rent, bills, and food, at least.

Back then, we survived on only one income, and to make it work, we needed to be careful and live frugally.

He found a good job as soon as possible, and now, after years, I switched to becoming a stay-at-home mom, but I’m sticking to my side hustles. Investing and saving took part in our lives even when we were on one income.

How did we raise $24,000?

As a young couple, to buy land, we needed to have 10% saved to pay directly the vendors, which meant $12,000 and 10% more in our savings accounts.

This time, it was only my husband working. However, our frugal habits and side hustle helped us to save this amount of money in no time. You must be wondering how.

These are the things we did to save $24,000 in 7 months.

We stopped buying unnecessary products

This step was the game changer when it came to real saving. Looking at the things we were buying, it was easy to see that some of them were just a total waste of money.

We noticed how much we were spending on bottled water when we could’ve just gotten it free from the tap. This is when we invested in a good water filter and kept the first money in our pockets.

Other things were ditching paper towels, downgrading cell phone plans, and analyzing all we used to spend on. Everything that was unnecessary started to fade away from our routine.

Cut the electric bill in half

Another little change for huge results was to practice energy-efficient habits. If you don’t do this, you should be aware that you basically throw away dollars into the bin.

Even by making little changes, we managed to cut 50% of the electricity bill. By now, we were already saving hundreds of dollars every month. Most of these changes required little effort, and they were not even so dramatic, so why not give it a try?

Grocery bill in half

Another bill cut in half?

Ok. I know how it may sound. Everything should have a limit, but groceries? What can you cut from that list? Well, I don’t know if you ever realized, but your grocery bill takes up the largest chunks of your budget.

These are some frugal habits considering this area of your life that you can practice and lower the food bill every month. This was another change that brought us a few more hundred dollars every month, and everything added up in the end.

PSSST! Have you heard about meal planning? This technique saves thousands of dollars every year. If you’re not sure how to start, you can find multiple guides online.

Money-saving apps

Until now, I hope you saw how every dollar counts and adds up. There are apps that count on this principle and help you in your saving journey. When you try to save a huge amount of money in a short time, trust me, you need all the possible help. If the help is free, even better.

You can get in touch with apps like Trim, who are supposed to solve some of your financial problems by automatically handling your day-to-day expenses. It checks to not waste money by being late with fees or unnecessary subscriptions, and even if you’re being overcharged by your service providers—these tools are so great, as some of them negotiate for you. By using all these resources you have access to, you can get to pay debt on time and save money for retirement and emergencies.

Budgeting to save money

Just by simply having a budget and sticking to it can help you save money each month and you can significantly improve your life. I get goosebumps when I think about how much money I wasted before doing this.

I’m glad that we wised up and started to budget so we could know exactly how and on what we spend our money. Paying attention to each dollar resulted in hundreds of dollars in savings each month.

A no-spend month challenge

Because we needed to raise the money as soon as possible, many of these 7 months were actually no-spend months. Now you’re probably wondering what’s a no-spend month. Well, as the name itself suggests, it’s a month when you choose to spend no other money than the basic necessities like bills and food.

And no, we didn’t get bored this time with our no-spend challenge. There are a lot of activities you can do during a no-spend month that are absolutely free. You can play board games, read a book, listen to an audiobook or podcast, build puzzles, take a free online course, watch YouTube videos, cook and bake, rearrange your rooms, paint, have a movie day, do crafts such as embroidery or crochet, workout, have a spa day at home, and the list can continue with infinite possibilities, and you just need to be creative.

The money-saving challenge

More than the activities each of us chose to do for our own well-being, we kept things interesting by following a money-saving challenge. If you’re a beginner, know that you can opt for a weekly, monthly, or annual challenge.
It’s a great idea to choose to follow a money-saving scheme in addition to your budgeting. This gives you extra hype to save even more.

Back in the day, I followed a money-saving challenge based on one income and the money we got. This year we try another challenge of saving $15,000 in 6 months. We plan to build our dream home, and we are doubling the amounts we save each week. This challenge, combined with the other tips in this article, will for sure help us save fast again.

This is a save-money challenge kit that you can find on Amazon if you want to start saving money in a fun way.

Side hustle for extra money

A major part of our saving strategy resides in side hustles. We wouldn’t be able to save so much with our bare incomes.

At that time, my side hustle was blogging, and you can make a good income from blogging. It requires a lot of work, but if you’re passionate about it, it’s an amazing way to make passive income eventually.
My husband did extra things as well; he started an online business, started tutoring, and offered his services. We also invested and sold stock when the price rose. However, all the extra money earned was added to our savings account, and this resulted in raising a large amount of money in a short time with only one of us having a salary.

So, if you want to save money fast, remember that everybody can do this, including you! All it takes is a mindset, a lot of discipline, and giving yourself the belief that you can do it.

If you found our article interesting, we invite you to read this one next and inform yourself about emergency funds: 7 Things to Discuss About Emergency Funds