Welcome to Pt. 2 of my money saving hacks. If you're here from "Money Saving Hacks Pt. 1, feel free to pick up right where you left off, enjoy! If you're new here and have no idea what's going on, welcome! Feel free to scroll through to my intro blog or follow the link to find it here: Welcome to the 20's. If you're looking for Pt. 1 of this post series, follow this link here: Money Saving Hacks Pt. 1.
Alright, let's get back into it shall we!
5. One word for you: ALDI. I used to be sceptical of Aldi. I was sceptical of a few things, number one I didn't think that it was really THAT much cheaper. I knew they had good deals but the price of bananas can't change that much can it really?? Secondly was that I wouldn't be able to get everything I need there because they had 'weird' brands and what not, and I would end up having to go to Woolies for most of my things anyway.
The latter is somewhat true, with some special dietary requirements it's not always possible to do my entire grocery shop at Aldi. However, I have to say they have an amazing gluten free range and I can do the vast majority of my shop there. The things that I can't purchase are extremely niche and more down to picky personal taste than a case of product availability.
In terms of the price, I am absolutely blown away with how much cheaper my grocery shop is when I make the effort to go to Aldi instead of Woolworths. For a big shop, I'm talking over $15 difference. I actually did a little experiment, and created a Woolworths Online cart of everything I had bought from Aldi and there was a difference of $16 just from a small top up shop! So the savings are actually legit :).
Here's an official comparison made by Choice, showing the price difference of a standardised "Christmas Shopping Basket". Aldi comes out on top by a loooooong way:
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| The Daily Mail, 2019 |
6. The 30 Day Rule. I think this is quite a common concept, but I have only recently come across this particular way of phrasing it. The 30 Day Rule basically means, if you see a product that you really want to buy, you have to wait 30 days before purchasing it. If after 30 days you come back to it and you still really want to buy it, then go for it. But sometimes, we impulse buy without even realising it, or our first impressions of something fool us into thinking it'll be the best purchase of our lives. I don't know about you, but I've definitely bought things that at the time I thought would be so totally life changing, but fast forward a few weeks and they were chucked into a drawer and remain there to this day😬 Oops!
Implementing this 30 day rule basically makes sure that you do desperately want whatever the product is that first caught your eye. Now I know things go in and out of season, and there are sales that may not be around in 30 days time, but this rule can be used as a general tool to help you make good purchasing decisions. It also doesn't have to be a 30 day time frame. You could see a dress you love, walk away and tell yourself you're going to come back to it before you leave to make sure you still love it, and by the time you've done the rest of your shopping you've over it and you don't really want the dress as much as you initially thought. Whatever time frame works for you!
7. CashBack Rewards. If I was to tell you that a way you could save money would be to just stop online shopping for new things altogether, you'd probably stop reading my blog on the spot and call me a dumb name to your computer screen. Everyone loves to shop, and everyone deserves nice things which is why I'm not going to tell you to stop shopping in order to save money. What you can do, is take advantage of a fantastic concept called "Cashback". In terms of online shopping, basically a cashback company teams up with a number of retailers and arranges to be paid commission every time they send a customer to the retailers site. Once you purchase something from said site, the cashback company then gives you part of the commission that they received for sending you to the retailer's website.
Put simply, you purchase things through a cashback website, and you get a portion of your spending's back. The amount varies between cashback companies and retailers and can be anywhere between 1-30% cashback, but generally you will receive around 5% cashback (Mum's Money Au, 2022).
Here's some websites that offer the cashback feature for online shopping:
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| ShopBack Rewards |
This cashback hack can also be used for credit cards. If you open a credit card account that offers cashback, you earn a percentage of each purchase you make on that credit card back.
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| Cash Rewards |
E.g. if your credit card offers 2% cashback, and you use the card to pay for a $100 grocery shop, you will earn an extra $2. However, you must be careful with these deals, because if the credit card balance is not regularly paid off, the interest that will accumulate on your balance will begin to overtake the amount of cash back that you are earning, therefore costing you more money rather than making you money. If you're interested in reading more about cashback credit cards, here's some websites that go into a bit more detail:
Money Helper UK (This is a UK website so just be careful when reading info on here)
8. Sell, Sell, Sell. There are tons and tons of platforms and websites available these days that allow you to sell pretty much anything you can think of second hand.
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| Prelove Hove, Adelady 2020 |
Facebook groups like Adelaide Clothes
Hiring a rack at Prelove Hove or Westlakes
Posting on any of your social media pages to show your friends what you are selling
Starting your own clothes hire page or posting your clothes hires on pre-existing pages. E.g. Adelaide Clothes
Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree are excellent for selling pretty much anything you can think of. Maybe you have an old dining table you don't use but is still in pretty good condition? Pop it on marketplace and make a quick $50 from something that was just taking up space in your home.
Sell your services. Maybe you did really well in school or university and you would be happy to tutor students on the side for some extra money. Maybe you're really handy on the sewing machine and can whip up some hair scrunchies with personalised patterns that you can sell. Or maybe you've got some spare time on your hands and you can use it to earn some extra cash through delivery services like Uber. There are endless possibilities for side hustles and they can involve as much or as little extra effort as you want them to, you just have to find something that will interest you!
If you stuck around to the end of this mini post series, then thankyou! I hope there were some helpful tips and tricks in there that you can start to implement into your own routines! If there are any other money saving hacks that you guys swear by, be sure to leave them in the comments so we can all help each other be more financially savvy!
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