10 Boring Habits That Save Us THOUSANDS 💰 money tips that *actually* work!

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Recently my friend sent me a video influencers version of 10 ways you can realistically save money and it had things like stop getting your nails painted, don't go get your car washed, stop eating out three times a day. She was talking about how those are things she's already not doing and how she already wouldn't even be able to afford that kind of thing. So, I thought I'd come up with my master list of 10 ways that I would get out of debt if I were starting over today. 10 ways that save you money quickly, you can help get yourself out of debt, you can save money faster, that sort of thing. Before we jump into those, if you're new here, my name is Ashlyn. I'm a 28-year-old stay-at-home mom. We are currently living on a single income.

[00:00:46]We just paid for my husband's school debt free and we are working on filling up our emergency fund and saving for our first home. So, I make lots of personal finance and budgeting content. If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, I would love it if you would stick around. So, let's jump into these 10 things that are going to save you thousands. The first one is you're probably paying too much for your car insurance. My husband and I, we both drive a car and every year I notice that our car insurance goes up. Maybe maybe it's $10, maybe it's $100. Kind of just is random. But, without any warning, it will just increase.

[00:01:25]And I've noticed that if I go through and get a new quote, whether that's with the same provider or a different one, I almost always, no, every single time, I've either gotten it to be a lower price or back to the original price that I was paying. So, if you haven't gone through your car insurance and gotten a new quote, even if it's with the same provider you already have, just having them give you a new quote, canceling the old plan and doing this new plan, usually will save you a decent chunk of money. So, make sure you're checking your insurance rates and don't let them charge you more every year. The second thing is kind of along those same lines, and that is to shop around for your phone provider. My husband and I went through probably a 6- to 9-month period where we were switching phone phone providers very frequently. A little caveat with that, we do have paid-off phones, and so we weren't tied to a single provider. We were able to try like some of the smaller companies and then some of the bigger ones. We finally settled on a business plan that we've gone in on with his family, and so we're paying a very small amount each month for our phones.

[00:02:38]So, shop around, see what you can find. If it's a really tight season of life, you can always do the trial periods of these phone providers. Um a lot of the time, they'll give you a free or cheaper 1 to 3 months, and can save you some cash if you are really in a pinch. Number three is kind of an obvious one, one you're not going to like very much, and I These are These are not fun things to do, but number three is to sell your stuff. I'm sure that you have a houseful, a garageful, a shedful, a yardful of stuff that you can get rid of.

[00:03:21]That's not to say you have to get rid of absolutely everything, but there are definitely things that might be sitting collecting dust that you don't use. A few things that I've had success with, I like to sell on Facebook Marketplace. I find it's the easiest. I like to just not have to deal with shipping or anything. So, that is primarily where I sell things. You could always branch out, use the apps. You could do eBay, Poshmark, I don't know, all those all those apps that are out there. And I'm going to share a few of the items that we've had luck with. First idea is some furniture for my baby's nursery. I got a dresser for free. I painted it because it was very ugly. I added some new knobs.

[00:04:04]And while it was very cute, I did not like how that dresser functioned. I just listed it on Facebook Marketplace and I made $80 from that. So, furniture, if you have anything kind of just sitting around that you don't use, that chair that sits in the corner and collects dirty laundry, maybe there's a table or a desk or something that's just sitting around that you don't need, list it, sell it, get some cash in your pocket.

[00:04:27]Another thing is toys. Toys sell really well. A lot of the time, if you just list a single toy, it's not going to go very quickly, but if you bundle some items that are for a like age or age group, then those you can sell for a higher price and they go faster. Games, electronics, books can all be sold very easily and honestly, a lot of the time they're just taking up space. Then, of course, there's always those bigger ticket items. Maybe you have a very expensive car or some fun toys with motors, that sort of thing.

[00:05:01]If you have some more expensive items, it can feel like a more more of a sacrifice to get rid of those, but if getting out of debt or saving money is a huge priority for you, then sometimes that sacrifice can be worth it. My fourth tip is to delete the social media and shopping apps off of your phone. If you told me this I don't know, 5 years ago, I would have thought you were insane, but I in the past few years have slowly gone through and deleted all the social media apps and all of the shopping apps off of my phone. I think of it like this. If you were to go to the store and just hang out there all the time, >> [clears throat] >> you're going to start putting things in your cart, you're going to start seeing things that you decide, "Oh, I really actually need that." And you kind of convince yourself that you do.

[00:05:51]And pretty soon, you're checking out with a million things you didn't even know you needed before you walked into the store. Those shopping apps and social media, honestly, are the same thing. If you're not seeing the influencers telling you all the things you have to have, if you're not trying to keep up with the trends that social media has going, if you're not spending time in those shopping apps where they're just designed to get you to spend and spend and spend, you're going to save a lot of money. So, also, not a fun thing, and I mean, you're a little bit weird for not having those apps on your phone, but it's made a difference in my shopping habit and my ability to stick to a budget. So, maybe it's worth the shot.

[00:06:32]Number five is to implement some no spend time periods. This could be a day, a weekend, a week, maybe even a month.

[00:06:41]Depends on how intense you want to be with this, but having a set amount of time that you decide that you're not going to spend any money, whether it's on food or fun or necessities that pop up, um doing a no spend kind of forces you to get creative with how you get the things you feel like you need. You can use the things that are in your kitchen already, um and it's a great way to kind of open your eyes to see how much you're spending and how much of that spending doesn't actually need to happen when it often feels like it does. Number six is to go out of your way to shop like a poor person. I weekly drive 15 to 20 minutes to get to the budget grocery store, the one that has the much cheaper prices. For me, it's WinCo. In other parts of the country, it's places like Aldi. I take the extra time to drive to that store, and it saves us hundreds of dollars a month. I also have three other stores that I shop at and I'm constantly comparing prices between all four stores. And while it does add extra time and effort to my grocery shopping, it definitely saves us tons of money. So, if you go out of your way to put the extra energy into finding the best deal for the items that you do have to have like groceries, it can save you a big chunk of money throughout the month and the years.

[00:08:08]Number seven is to become the king or queen of we have that at home. You want a cookie? We have flour and sugar and baking powder and all of those things at home. You want to see a movie? We have the streaming service or the DVDs at home. It's not glamorous. It's not fun.

[00:08:26]Honestly, a lot of the time is disappointingly boring, but it is a great way to save money. If you're telling yourself no to all those extra spending things, even if it's just you, even if you don't have other people that are asking for those things, telling yourself or the people around you we have that at home saves you a lot of money even when it's just something small like a candy bar at the store.

[00:08:48]Those little purchases add up and if you're just saying, oh, it's a dollar here, it's $2 there, those add up throughout the month and honestly can be a big amount at the end of the month that you could otherwise be saving or paying off debt with. Number eight is kind of rogue. Took me a long time to figure this out, but it's to spend money on the things that need maintenance. Specifically for us, that is mostly referring to our car.

[00:09:15]I found that when you're spending the money on the regular maintenance that needs to be happening, the things that would be breaking otherwise don't happen and are taken care of because you're doing the maintenance. So, we used to spend so much money on having to fix our cars because we didn't get the oil changed all the time. We never did the transmission flush. We never I don't know. Just We kept up with all the the filters and the belts and all the things that the cars have. But, being consistent with the maintenance on those things has made a huge difference in the amount of amount of money that we're having to spend on repairs for our cars because the repairs don't pop up nearly as often. Number nine is kind of an obvious one, but if you're new to this, you've just kind of had your oh no, I'm in a lot of debt or oh no, I need to save some money situation, maybe you're not doing it, and that is to track your spending. Every month we do a zero-based budget, so every single cent that comes in um we give it a job. We know where it's supposed to go, and we track every single cent throughout the month.

[00:10:24]Because we do that, we know what categories we are overspending in, we know what categories we are giving too much of our budget to, and we're kind of able to make sure that our budget is working for us as well as it possibly can. So, if you're not tracking your budget honestly down to the penny, then some of that money is going to go to waste, and you're not really going to know where it's going. And number 10 is to learn the art of DIY. Need a haircut?

[00:10:54]There is no better teacher than YouTube University. Need to change your tire?

[00:10:59]Same thing, YouTube knows best. You could always have somebody else come in and help you. Is your washing machine broken? There's YouTube tutorial for that. Does your car need an oil change or the brakes changed? There's a way to get that done yourself, too. A lot more effort, a lot more stress, I'd say, because you're kind of afraid that you're going to mess it up.

[00:11:18]But, the more you practice, the better you get, and the more money you save because you're doing it yourself consistently. This one takes some uh confidence and some research, but you You save a lot of money throughout the years by just learning to do these things yourself.

[00:11:35]This definitely won't be forever.

[00:11:37]There is a light at the end of the tunnel. You will reach the finish line and be past this debt or this amount that you have to save. And you'll be so much happier and more free to live the way that you want to because you put in the time and energy now rather than letting it continue and build up for the future. I hope these tips helped give you some ideas, some things to think about. I know they're not glamorous or fun or exciting, but they're definitely things that have helped us. They helped us pay for my husband's master's degree from the very start all the way to the very finish without taking out any student debt. Um I've been able to stay home with my kids because we have implemented these things and my husband has been able to explore different careers because we set ourselves up with these sorts of things.

[00:12:31]We've save more money, have an emergency fund, pay off all of our debt because we used habits like this. So, if you found that helpful, great.

[00:12:44]I hope it does help you make some forward movement with your financial goals.

[00:12:52]Um if you like the video, please make sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel and I will see you again next week [music] for another one. Bye.

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