10 Easy Ways To Save Money: How We Saved $20k

We didn’t quit our jobs to travel the world, we still both work full-time jobs with retirement pension plans. We didn’t win the lottery and we aren’t independently wealthy. So, how do we afford to travel so much? We have gotten insanely good at minimizing our lifestyle and maximizing our saving. Here are our easy ways to save money:

Working Full-Time Jobs

The number one way we are able to afford to travel so much is because we both work full-time jobs (plus a side hustle!) It might sound lame, but we enjoy having a steady stream of income and having a home base, so to speak. The only downside of working a full-time job is you’re subject to a certain amount of time off every year.

We are extremely lucky that we get off about 12 paid vacation days, 12 federal holidays, and 2 floating holiday days per year. We also try to strategically work in those long weekend federal holidays into a vacation so we take one less day off out of our paid vacation leave.

Cutting the Cord

An often overlooked easy way to save money is by cutting the cord. Last year, I received our latest Verizon bill in the mail, we had the Triple Play – Phone, Internet and Cable. It was $198.76. It was at that point we realized something had to give. The only reason we were keeping our landline was because our alarm system connected to it. We shopped around and found a new alarm company, Protect America, who offered a wireless system AND it was $20 per month less, so out went the phone.

Next to go was cable. I could not believe the amount of money we were paying for cable and the worst part was we were probably only watching 15 out of the 250 channels we got. We did some research and decided to go with Sling, Sling offers several different plans with different channels so we went with the one that fit our likes the best. We also bought a digital antenna so we could watch local stations. Lastly, we share a Netflix account with my mom.

So, we went from $198 per month to $40 per month for just internet service. Subtract the money we are saving on our alarm system and add in the $20 for Sling and we are now saving $1936 per year. I don’t know about you, but $1936 would make a really nice weekend getaway in the Napa Valley!

Buying Things We Don’t Need

I can’t tell you the last time either of us set foot inside a mall. We buy most of our clothes from thrift stores or consignment stores and of course, Target (because what doesn’t come from Target?!) And believe it or not, most of my clothes I’ve gotten are Ann Taylor, J. Crew, Banana Republic, etc. and most still have tags on them!

At this point, I think we are the only two people on the planet that don’t have Apple watches. Speaking of Apple, we still have iPhone 6’s that are 4 years old (and we would still have iPhone 4’s if they both didn’t crap out on us after 5 years). Currently, I am typing this on a Toshiba laptop that is 5 years old (which really dates it since Toshiba doesn’t even make laptops anymore!)

Lastly, I drive a 2013 Mazda 3 and Brian drives a 2011 Toyota Corolla. Both cars have been paid off for more than two years. The average car payment in the U.S. for new cars is $530 and for used cars $381. So, taking our car payments into account and the fact they have been paid off for 2+ years, we have currently saved about $16k just in car payments by driving “older cars.” Our cars also both get excellent gas mileage, about 36-38 mpg on highway and since we work in the same office building we also carpool to work everyday.

Reducing Costs

One of the best things we ever did was quit our large gym and join a smaller gym with fewer amenities. Our old gym was costing us $39.99/month per person and included things we never used (but were still paying for) like a kid’s zone, a four lap swimming pool, fitness classes and spinning classes. We quit that gym and joined a much smaller gym for $9.99/month per person that just has cardio equipment and weightlifting equipment which is perfect for us.

Another easy way to save money is by cutting back on salon time. I also only get my hair cut and highlighted twice a year instead of every month. One tip I would give the ladies is if you are going to highlight your hair, use a color that is very close to your own color and then when it starts growing out, it will blend in to your natural hair color. For the guys, Brian cuts his hair at home using an electric hair trimmer instead of going to the salon.

We also reduced the cost of our cell phone bill by switching from Verizon to T-Mobile. Our Verizon cell phone bill was $158/month with unlimited talk and text and 10GB of data. We were routinely either going over our 10GBs/month or getting pretty darn close to hitting it but I didn’t want to pay the astronomical amount for unlimited data. We switched to T-Mobile and are now paying $100/month for two lines of unlimited talk, text, and data.

Lastly, we had the same home and car insurance company for the past eight years so last year we shopped around and decided to go with Stillwater for homeowners insurance and Geico for auto insurance. We save $500 a year switching to Stillwater and $400 a year switching to Geico. That’s not to say we will be with them forever, next year we plan to shop around again as typically insurance prices trend upward every year.

Eating Out

We pack our lunches every single day. An easy way to save money is to meal prep. I usually make a batch of turkey chili on Sunday night that will last us for three lunches and then we have salads for the other two lunches. Considering a meal at Panera or Chick-fil-A costs about $10 per person, we save around $100 each week by just packing our lunches.

On average, we eat dinner out about once a month. We simply enjoy eating a nice home cooked meal every night instead of eating out and spending unnecessary amounts of money. If we do eat out, we typically get water with dinner and then come home and have a glass of wine from our $3.99/bottle Lidl red wine collection. And coffee? Forget it, no way am I paying $3 for a small cup of coffee at Starbucks, we brew our own before work!

Sell Items We Don’t Need

Do you have items in your house you never use? This is an easy way to save money and reduce the clutter around your home! That fondue pot that has been sitting in the back of your pantry for the past five years, those bikes in the garage you haven’t ridden in two years, or how about old gaming systems like that PS3 that hasn’t been played in years? SELL THEM!

I typically use a combination of Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and Facebook local classified groups, and LetGo. I definitely get the most traction on Facebook Marketplace and Facebook local classified groups. Within the past year I’ve sold both of our bikes, a hiking backpack, bread maker, recliner, dishes, an older pressure cooker, stereo receiver, firescreen, air purifier, mirror, juicer, electric keyboard and an aquarium tank. All items that were tucked away in closets never to be seen nor heard from again. Grand total? Almost $2,000!

Side Hustle

Six years ago, we started our own travel planning business, Gateway Travel VA. (Shameless plug – contact us if you’re looking to plan a getaway, we love planning trips! The best part is, our services are completely free, you pay nothing for us to help you plan your dream vacation!) We began with specializing in Disney vacations but quickly expanded our reach to include the Caribbean, Central & South America, and Europe. Now, we will pretty much help plan any trip our clients have their hearts set on from cruising the Mediterranean to staying in an igloo in Finland. All the money we make from our travel planning business goes straight into the “vacation fund.”

Travel Credit Cards

This could be an entire post in itself but I will narrow down the focus to what we do. We currently both have JetBlue Plus Cards and we are able to pool our points thru family sharing on the JetBlue website. Some would say charging everything onto credit cards isn’t an easy way to save money but we haven’t paid for a flight to Disney World in the past two years!

As long as you pay off your balance at the end of every month, it can be highly lucrative. We were also able to get the $95 annual fee waived when our one year anniversary came up simply by calling them and asking for it to be waived. We are currently looking into getting a Capital One Venture Card or a Chase Sapphire Reserve Card as we want to start traveling overseas more and those miles could come in handy!

Cheap Flights

I use several search engines to search for cheap flights including Google Flights, SkyScanner and CheapFlights. However, my favorite is Scott’s Cheap Flights. Scott offers two tiers of membership – one is free and one is $39 per year. With the free membership, Scott will send you a few flight deals per week to your e-mail. With the $39/month membership you can tell Scott your preferred departure airports and your e-mails will be tailored towards cheap flights from those departure cities. This is how we were able to fly to Iceland for $199/round-trip!

What It Comes Down To

Ultimately, what it comes down to is if we want something, we’ll ask ourselves do we really want this item or would we rather use that money to travel? Just by cutting the cord with cable, driving paid off cars, switching our gym membership, cell phone carrier, and insurance company, not eating out for lunch and drastically cutting back on eating out for dinner, and selling items we don’t use, we saved about $20,000 last year. And I’m not even counting our side hustle, buying clothes from consignment and thrift stores, travel credit cards, and cheap flights. If we can do it, you can too!

Do you have any easy ways to save money? We would love to hear them, leave us a comment below!

Was this post helpful? Save it for later on Pinterest!