As part of my 10^th year of blogging, I’ve had a lot of fun doing ‘look backs’ on some of my older articles. I was fresh out of college and into my first real job as a young professional when I started this blog and a lot has changed since then, both in my life, in my career, in my income and also the world in general. Stuff feels more expensive now in some ways, and also post-pandemic life is similar but not the same to pre-pandemic life. So, does my advice in 2015 on how to save some money THIS WEEK still hold up in 2023? Let’s take a look!

Throw open the windows and turn on a fan. 2023 – KEEP. It might be a good time to make a joke/comment on global warming, but in my own life summers definitely do feel hotter than they used to. So, it’s a bit harder to keep the a/c higher in the summer for us. The winters we do still do a pretty good job at keeping it a bit cooler – it’s easier to bundle up in the winter with more clothes (#sweatpantsseason). Apparently most of us keep our A/C on 72 in the summer, when the Department of Energy recommends it set to 78. In our house with two little ones running around we do try to keep it a little cooler – but not quite 72 but at 74. It’s our little compromise. We have continued to do a good job at this especially in the spring and fall – for a month or so we’ll actually keep the thermostat off since the temperature throughout the day is pretty temperate.

As good of advice as this still is – it feels like the cost of electricity has continued to go up but I guess we could be spending more money not doing what we’re doing!

Meal plan a couple of meals on Sunday. 2023 – 100% KEEP. Eating out continues to be very expensive; especially it feels if you do Uber Eats or Door Dash or pick your food delivery option. With our busy schedules of 2 working parents with 2 kids plus all our activities meal planning is imperative for us. I probably take it a little too far in how religiously I maintain the meal plan but we do try to eat meals at home 6 days per week and ensure we have food for lunch via leftovers or sandwiches. Eating in continues to be a great way to save money!

When you do go out, stop ordering alcohol at dinner. 2023 – KEEP. As if eating out wasn’t expensive enough, alcohol continues to be a great way to add more onto your bill. 2023 YMF is also thinking about the health benefits of less alcohol but the saving money definitely holds true!

Photo by Jessica Tan on Unsplash

Watch the game at home instead of at a sports bar. 2023 – DROP. I feel like this is less of a thing, at least in my own life so maybe not as helpful anymore. This very well could be me in my own stage of life but I can’t remember the last time I went out to a sports bar to watch a game. The pandemic definitely but a stop to this for a few years and this feels at least in my own life to not be something I would think to do.

Carpool at least once or twice. 2023 – DROP. Carpool…like to work…in an office? In my own personal life I’m currently going into the office once…maybe twice a week at most (Powers that be at my company please don’t read this and come after me!) and the rest I’m working from home (#sweatpantsseason…2^nd time I’ve used that hashtag in this post!). Beyond that I feel like my stage of life right now isn’t as conducive to carpooling; carseats in the car and my schedule thankfully is pretty flexible allowing me to come in a little later / leave a little earlier and also throw in daycare pickup/drop-off it just would make carpooling difficult. But, I suppose I am saving a lot on gas compared to what I was in 2015 when I was commuting in/out 5x/week.

Say no to the impulse buy. 2023 – KEEP, but maybe it’s easier now? Once again this is my own personal life / world view but I feel like I very rarely go into shops anymore. Not that I did a lot in 2015 but I do most of my shopping online today and rarely step foot into a store that’s not a coffee shop or grocery store. On the other side of the coin though, grocery shopping with BabyMoneyFinance and SegundoMoneyFinance is a bit tougher as they are at an age in which they know what they like to eat, can recognize it at the store and can grab it on their own. However it has become a good lesson in money management, I’ll allow them to pick one treat for themselves and so if and when they pick a second I tell them they have to choose which one they most want. So, perhaps in 2023 it’s still good advice it’s just easier to make happen!

Go for a run. 2023- DROP. Exercise is still very important in my life and I still maintain going to the gym 4x/week (it’s a Crossfit gym which I feel obliged to mention whenever possible that I do Crossfit…it’s the first rule of Crossfit to tell everyone you do it). However, I feel like this piece of advice is less valuable as I feel like if you belong to a gym it’s not something you could easily pause month to month (I could be wrong), I feel like most are a yearly contract which is not easy to pause in an attempt to save money at. If you are looking to save money this week, I would still not recommend forgoing a workout, but I suppose going for a run is a good free alternative. Plus I feel like there are plenty of free workout routines you can find online/youtube if you’re looking to save money!

Set a maximum for this week and stick to it. 2023 – KEEP but wow this can be hard. I do still think that if you find yourself a little behind your budget this month and are looking for a cheaper week this is good advice. In my own life I feel like we attempt this every month but more often than not this proves easier said than done. There’s so much in life to say ‘yes’ to when you really should be saying ‘no’. But little ways we try to do this are: definitely not eating out, skipping some meat in a few of our meals (meat can get pricey), skipping the latte at the coffee shop or limiting yourself at the grocery store!

2023 additions

The world has changed since I first wrote this article in 2015, so here are some new ideas I would add to this list of easy ways to save money this week:

Work to pause some subscriptions. Although a quick scan told me that most subscriptions that I use in my life don’t have an easy way to ‘hold’ an account (Hulu did look to have that option though), it does look like there are easy ways to cancel a subscription and then re-apply it at a later date. If you are like me you probably have several entertainment subscription services at one time, so an easy way to save money could be to cancel one or two of them for a month!

Do pickup vs delivery. During the pandemic it felt like delivery services like Uber Eats, Door Dash, Grubhub etc were an amazing lifeline for us. It was so great to be able to continue eating restaurant foods in the comfort (and safety) of our own home. This trend has continued post-pandemic with a couple of our credit cards having monthly credits (like $10-$15) so we’ve kept doing this. However, wow delivery fees I’ve noticed are expensive. It’s almost a joke now – you order a $10 entrée and by the time you’ve hit checkout it’s $20 with taxes, fees, tips. This feels a little retro/throwback but what about just going to the restaurant’s website and ordering directly through them and doing pickup? That $20 $10 entrée quickly comes back closer to $10.

Be pickier with grocery stores. In my life today there are 3 different grocery stores we frequent. Publix, which is the closets, Kroger, and then Lidl, which is the farthest. We know from shopping experience that Lidl is the cheapest, but it’s also the farthest and doesn’t always allow us to cross everything off our list. Kroger has a great pickup option allowing us to shop online and have it brought out to our car. Then there’s Walmart Plus which I get as a benefit of a credit card I have but we’ve found they are not the best at delivering the order 100% accurately and there’s the tip for the driver to. All that to say we’ve got options and depending on how the budget is looking we might drive a little further to Lidl and risk not having the perfect grocery list to save a few dollars vs Kroger or Publix who have more options but can be a bit pricier.

Do a quick google search for coupons. Before I buy anything online, I always do a quick google search for “______ store name coupon” just to see. There are a ton of sites out there that offer coupons. Mrs. Money has been a big fan of Rakuten, and I recently installed the Capital One shopping extension. Both have been pretty legit. A few other solid recommendations: RetailMeNot, RebateFanatic and DollarDig. They don’t always work out but more often than not I feel that spending 5 mins trying a few codes or rebates pays out!

Saving money and cutting back on expenses is not always the easiest (despite the title haha). But it’s an important task to maintain a strong budget and spending less money in my experience is still easier than finding ways to earn more money. These are just some ideas that have worked in my life – do a review in your own life to see how you spend your money and try to find ways to cut back in your own life!