
Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money? - jmaccabee
My startup has been kicking around the idea of developing a Chrome extension to help save you money.<p>I&#x27;ve been wondering - what are some of everyone&#x27;s favorite apps or extensions for saving money? I&#x27;ve heard of Ebates, Honey, and Ibotta. Is there a need that&#x27;s currently going unmet?<p>Would love to get potential user feedback. Thanks!!
======
rufus42
This app changed literally my life. YNAB!
[https://www.youneedabudget.com](https://www.youneedabudget.com)

It takes time to get used to, but after 6 years on and off, I am using it for
the last 8 months regularly, and I already saved enough money for the next 4
months in advance.

This, and in addition, read [https://www.amazon.com/Early-Retirement-Extreme-
philosophica...](https://www.amazon.com/Early-Retirement-Extreme-
philosophical-independence-ebook/dp/B0046LU7H0)

You don't need more, trust me.

But, of course, what these two have in common, is simply:

1\. Spend much less than you earn 2\. Try to just spend 30-40% of your income,
but an emergency fund which stores 6 month worth of money, and then invest the
saved money.

What I recommend, is a little game: 1\. Don't eat out for a whole month 2\.
Don't do any big purchases for a whole month

You will see how much many you usually spend, and how your mind is triggering
you to buy things. It will be really hard, so instead of thinking about "oh
no, I shouldn't buy this", just write a note on a piece of paper everytime you
want to buy something.

At the end of the month, you will see how "stupid" you were to want a certain
things. If a certain things come up on this list over and over, then maybe it
could be useful.

~~~
sickbeard
YNAB is good if it's just you or you're the sole manager of your account, but
multi-user is hard to maintain, spent more time fixing syncing issues etc. I
also don't like things that claim to solve money problems by asking you for
money

~~~
rufus42
Well, they don't solve your money problems, nobody can do this :) They offer
you a really good service, which of course they want money for. But I think
its around 2,50 Dollar a month? I already saved up to 15k in the last few
months, so they can have their 2,50 ;)

------
faebi
For me the simplest solution is to have a second bank account I never take
money from. Then every time I get my salary a certain amount gets moved to the
savings account. I do not miss money I never really had. Additionally some
days before my salary all my money above a certain threshold gets also moved
to the savings account, so that I have the same money every month, even when I
spent less. Also I have my I am poor level. When I have less than 1000Fr/$ I
cut my spending to very basic things like food only. This protects me from
depth and touching my savings.

All of this is easily possible in nearly any bank in Switzerland, I am not
shure about the US or other parts of the world. Hope I could create some
inspiration.

~~~
faebi
Also wanted to say, its important that all of that happens automatic, so that
I do not need to decide whether its right to do so or not. It should be like
taxes, forced on me.

~~~
W0lf
Hey, I pretty much have the same setup you've described except the second
money transfer if your current account balance is above a given threshold. How
did you solve this? Do you use a special tool for this such as MoneyMoney for
example? (This is what I'm currently using for dealing with my bank accounts)

~~~
faebi
Actually my bank/ebanking offered this feature. It also works opposite, so as
example if you have less than 1000$ it will automatically move money from a
certain account to this account.

------
drinchev
My father always says : "saving money is the beginning of being poor".

So I always try to save money by thinking how can I make more. These days
money = time is a strong equation, so just don't loose your time and use it in
a way to make money.

Stop thinking about saving money and spend your thoughts on revenue stream.
That's why I rarely use services like that and don't count the pennies ( I'm
neither rich nor bragging )

~~~
patmcc
Certainly it's good to increase your revenue, but saving money is often much
more valuable; a dollar saved is $1.4 earned, assuming you live somewhere with
a high marginal tax rate.

~~~
charlesdm
Whenever I've had cashflow problems in the past, for me, spending less was
never the solution. Having a good idea (and thus, making more money) always
was.

~~~
pjc50
It's great that you can have profitable ideas whenever you need them.

~~~
charlesdm
The thought of running out of money can often be a great motivator.

------
bluedino
Since this turned into a personal finance thread, how about favorite ways to
_spend_ money?

Starbucks. Every morning. Latte and a danish/cookie/muffin. $7.00 * 30 days =
$210.00

Eat lunch out. Every day. And not with a coupon or fast food, but a sit-down
restaurant. Sandwich, fries, soda, tip - $12.00. Every weekday, that's $240.00

Vending machine snacks, my job doesn't offer free snacks. $2.50 for a Mt.
Dew/chips when I get that craving at 3:30. Every weekday, that's $50.00

Spend more at the grocery store than you would eating out a restaurant. Throw
food away, don't eat your leftovers, buy expensive meats, cheeses and fancy
ingredients. $150/trip or $600/month

Now that we're past the daily items, let's go into the monthly expenses.

SUV instead of a small car. $600/month and another $250/month in insurance,
$60/week in gas. $1100/month

Buy a new MacBook. Every year. You sell the old one but you're still spending
another $700 on the new one and sales tax. Don't forget to buy a new
case/decal for the new one.

Upgrade your phone. Every year. Buy new accessories for it, and get the
mammoth dataplan. This can be $150/month.

Frivously spend $100/month on iTunes purchases. Songs you don't really like,
movies you don't even end up watching, games you'll play once and never open
again.

Drink heavily! What else are you going to do with $70/night? Inebriate
yourself a few times a week.

Piss away $25/week on lottery tickets. Might as well try, right?

Impulse purchases under $500? Don't even worry about it. GoPro, new tablet,
latest game console, high-end pots and pans for your house - just buy it!

~~~
loco5niner
Spur of the moment trip to Africa? Don't even bother packing, just bring your
credit card!

Clothes won't fit after all those vending machine snacks? Throw them all away
and upgrade to bigger ones!

------
s_kilk
I just record all my discretionary purchases in a spreadsheet and recoil in
horror at the end of the month.

My monthly spend has been steadily dropping since I started doing this about
six months ago.

EDIT: I seem to have misunderstood the topic of this thread, but, as another
commenter puts it, the best way to save money is to not spend money in the
first place.

~~~
iamdave
On that note though, while I realize there are plenty of apps that will do
this sort of thing for you, I really wished there were that did it with this
level of simplicity.

And I don't mean create an account for Mint or Level or any of the other
bountiful budgeting services out there and merely _export_ to a Spreadsheet. I
(personally) literally only want something that can connect to my accounts,
see a transaction, and update a row. Nothing in the middle.

Does it exist already?

~~~
fakename
I record all my spending manually with Expense Manager [
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.markushi.ex...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.markushi.expensemanager)
] Dead simple. Add an amount, give it a category, add a note (optional). See
trends, exports to excel. Every attempt to use mint, level, etc has resulted
in confusing duplicated entires or entries that don't show up until I've
forgotten what they are.

~~~
iamdave
This is perfect. I have one of those phone case/wallet combos and cards are
right there with the phone so I can quickly enter purchases.

Thanks!

------
tedmiston
1\. Fatwallet

Until it was acquired a few months ago I was a longtime user of FatWallet to
make a few percentage points back on the dollar at many stores.

2\. Jet Anywhere

Jet.com has an incredible cash back program called Jet Anywhere. While the
number of stores is small, the percentages are very strong. For example, 20%
back at Nike or Saks Fifth.

What I'm getting the most out of though is plane tickets. Flight purchases
through them get 5.6% back via Orbitz or 4.8% back via Expedia. After
verifying you completed the travel, they dispatch cash back in the form of Jet
Cash in 30 days. Many items on Jet are equal or cheaper than Amazon, so this
is effectively cash. 5% back on plane tickets becomes a significant amount of
money very quickly.

By the way — they do not have a Chrome extension and I have interest in
working on one.

3\. Cash back credit card

I also purchase everything on a card that gives 2% cash back on every purchase
without exception. This is literal cash off your bill, not a rewards program.

I've received $100+ back from the first two methods, and even more from the
third.

\---

I'm really passionate about the topic of "money hacking" and happy to discuss
more via email if you're interested. I'm currently writing a few blog posts on
personal financial habits myself.

~~~
ap0
What card are you using with universal 2% cash back?

~~~
Phemist
I guess this only works for people with good credit rating, where the risk of
defaulting is low? It seems to me this would be you getting back the 2%
default fee on credit card transactions, that has been featured on HN before -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11887469](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11887469).

~~~
tedmiston
That's pretty crazy, and I don't think it would fly here, though I never shop
at Walmart.

Perhaps it's different in Canada but Visa and MasterCard are the most popular
credit card brands in the US.

The only time I've seen something related in the US is at discount grocery
store chain Aldi's (it has some commonalities with Walmart) which has a 0.5%
surcharge to pay with a debit or credit card in the US and Australia. They had
been doing this internationally for a while, in countries where they accept
credit cards at least, and Europeans seem to be more accepting of it than
Americans, but it only became consistent in the US over the past year or so.

------
papacoen
Personally, I save money by not buying stuff. Otherwise I tend to buy
secondhand. Requires some sort of lifestyle to get this to work, since you
don't always find stuff the moment you need it. Not needing/wanting to spend
money, is also a (new) mindset; appreciating or even realizing/knowing what
you already have. Yes, this is very close to tree-hugging-hippie-style-living,
but what the heck :) Also: never, ever spend money you don't have. Don't
borrow money. Maybe for a house, but never, ever for a car, t.v., laptop,
whatever.

------
tummybug
My method which is my least favourite but most successful was to marry a quite
frugal woman. I was never the type who had any money left at the end of the
month but have just put a 55k€ deposit down on a new house and have money left
to furnish it (about 2 yrs of saving). I also have a young child, live in a
nice area with high rent, have a car and have many hobbies which I enjoy
regularly. The main savings have come from cutting back on expensive impulse
purchases, the second would be cutting down to one coffee a day and bringing
my own lunch to work. Next on my list is to quit smoking which should also
greatly increase my savings ability.

~~~
shabble
> _Next on my list is to quit smoking which should also greatly increase my
> savings ability._

Setting aside the obvious health benefits, this can make a pretty impressive
saving by itself. From memory, I was spending something like £100-150/mo on
cigarettes, and in the UK at least, I think the "sin tax" on them has only
increased in recent years.

------
jasonpeacock
How about something that prevents purchasing, or forces a 1-day wait. The best
way to same money is not to spend it, and most of us don't need half the stuff
we buy....

~~~
swalsh
Oh man, what a great idea. Especially as you start shopping around, you can
build a broader profile of a customer's shopping habits, which could be sold
for better targeting advertising.... oh wait... argh why does my mind always
go there.

~~~
EdHominem
Have a meta-site, like a pluggin, with a shopping cart. You browse other sites
such as Amazon, EBay, Anandtech, etc and it creates a registry of things you
want.

On the backend it can solicit better offers from other merchants on the same
and similar merchandise.

Also, as you note, the customer's data could be sold and (partially) turned
into a rebate. Perhaps the site could also tell you which extra data (your
gender, age, other purchases, etc) would be the most valuable and you could
choose to release these facts.

~~~
jrcii
You can already do this with Amazon's Add to Wishlist bookmarklet which lets
you add any product from any page on the web to an Amazon wishlist.

------
onion2k
I read a lot of philosophy books. They taught me to think deeply about the
things that make me happy, and it turns out most of the things that make me
happy are essentially free (reading, coding, etc).

I doubt it'd work for everyone, and it would be tricky to turn in to a Chrome
extension, but something that put a Stoic quote in to Amazon's checkout page
_might_ help people.

~~~
tue4Iezi
Any book recommendations on this?

~~~
onion2k
Anything by Alain De Botton but especially "Consollations of Philosophy" and
"Status Anxiety", "How To Live: Micheal De Montaigne" by Sarah Bakewell, and
"Philosophy for Life" by Jules Evans. None of them are hardcore academic
works; they're just really interesting introductions to how philosophy can
actually be useful.

------
kamaal
1\. Learn cooking: Saves a lot of money, healthy and a lot of long term
advantages.

2\. Learn to do the 'beginning with the end in mind': A lot of us here in
India go and buy a plot on a reasonable loan, and then try to clear it off
within 2-3 years. This way you get to acquire a resource, make a investment,
and are forced to save up every month to clear the loan. This is more like
forced savings. Repeat this for a long time, and you will get really really
rich.

3\. Keep a diary: Keep a habit tracker, try to get a continuous streak of $0
expense days.

4\. Pick up a hobby like music: Gets you entertainment without bills for
TV/Cable and things like that.

5\. Buy for need and durability: Don't buy everything that you see people
buying. Buy only if you need something and buy durable stuff.

There are a range of other things I do. But it might get a little too long for
a HN post.

~~~
suranyami
This is a great set of suggestions.

On the cooking side of things, I found I was spending a lot of money buying
lunches. Sydney is a _VERY_ expensive city: a 'cheap' lunch in the CBD costs
at least $7. So, we're talking about saving at least $35-50 per week. Over a
year, that's approx $1500-2000 per year. And often, it's not as good as things
I like to make for myself.

So I cook double-or-triple the quantities of recipes on the weekends... I take
pride in making complex curries, slow-cooked casseroles and the like. Usually,
doubling or tripling the quantities does not change the cooking time
significantly and there are economies of scale with the costs as well.

Then, I package up the extra into lunch and dinner-sized portions for myself,
wife and family for the week in the freezer.

This way, we all get cheap lunches (cost approx $1-2) and gain extra time at
dinner during the weekdays (no cooking! just re-heat and add
rice/salad/veges).

I'd say that as well as saving $1500-2000 per year, it's also saved us an hour
or 3 every single week. Frankly, it's worth it if just for the time saved.

~~~
cscharenberg
Slow-cooker meals are indeed great. Very cheap to fix, makes big quantities,
and they can be wonderful. Throw things in at 8am, at 5pm you have hot,
delicious food in quantities to throw a dinner party or eat for days.

My wife and I did a "month of slow cooking" to try recipes. Most were good and
many are part of our regular cooking rotation now.

------
eswat
Food:

It wasn't until recently that started to cook my own meals every day. I felt
time was always time limited when I worked for a company so I would get
takeout a lot. Especially in my time in Toronto due to the large amount of
good places to eat at. Switching to eating predominantly stuff I make has
saved a lot; next to rent food was my biggest monthly expense.

Phone plan:

In Canada carriers have different plans for each province, with the prairies
getting the best deals. It's gotten so ridiculous that there's a "black
market" where resellers sell SIM cards from other provinces and carriers
trying to lock that down.

Anyway I lived in Manitoba and got a phone plan there where I'm paying half
the cost for 3x the amount of data and features I would get in Ontario. The
only downside is that most people calling me would get dinged long-distance
since I'm using a Manibota number in Ontario, but Canada-wide calling plans
are so common for mobiles now that I don't feel guilty about it.

------
codegeek
Give me a chrome extension that always alerts me if I am missing a possible
coupon on an e-commerce site that I am on. For example, automatically check
sites like retailmenot.com etc and tell me possible coupon codes for a product
i may be checking out without applying any coupon. Bonus points if u also
apply that coupon for me :)

~~~
michaelmior
You mean Honey?

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpnenekpadlanbbkooimhnj)

~~~
blahi
I cannot see the aggregator going on too long with this. The retailers will
run the reports and see what's going on and put pressure on the network. Last
second couponers do not add any value to a retailer and they are fighting
those type of affiliates.

------
simonbarker87
I save money the old school way - envelope/budget system.

We have a current account for day to day expenses (groceries, toll road pass
top up, a couple of meals out) and the same amount gets out in that at the
start of the month. Then with a separate bank we have an account for all
direct debits and standing orders (mortgage, electricity, internet, phone etc)
including a standing order to an investment account which we view as a monthly
expense (we are essentially paying ourselves but it's taken monthly so no
excuses to miss paying it), so we put the same amount in to that every month.

We then have a number of savings accounts that cover the various expenses that
crop up on an irregular/long terms basis. Holiday fund, clothes fund, Oh Crap!
fund, TV License, insurances, christmas/gifts etc. We know how much needs to
be in these by the time a payment is due (say annual payments) so each month
one 12th of the amount gets added so when the payment is due the money is
there. For gifts and christmas we adjust as we go on a six monthly basis,
basically by Christmas we know we need a certain amount and it's great come
November and all of christmas is paid for.

Any money left over gets put into a either investments or a big pot for a
large purchase we may want to make in the future (eg, property).

Historically we have tracked expenses with a web app that I wrote however
recently have switched to Pennies on iOS.

For cash back we use Quidco, to reduce monthly costs we look at
moeysavingexpert (Martin Lewis's old site).

Beyond that we often check if something counts as lifestyle creep - the
tendency to needlessly upgrade aspects of your life just because you have more
disposable income that before. If we see a habit developing that costs extra
money or we are making a big purchase we have a quick chat and ask if it's
needless lifestyle creep? Sometimes we decide it is and we're ok with it,
other times we'll decide that in the long run it's not worth the extra spend
so stop.

Seems to work for us.

------
cylinder
I would love a Chrome extension that converts all dollar figures on the page
into a the number of hours of work at my salary it would cost.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Something like this: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/time-is-
money/oopp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/time-is-
money/ooppbnomdcjmoepangldchpmjhkeendl)

Note I haven't used it.

------
thesignal
Since I set a goal for myself(hose/flat/something like that), I looked for a
lot of ways to save money, my tips are:

\- keep track of every cent spent, i started using GnuCash, but there are a
lot of other solutions available \- don't buy yourself a lunch every day, make
a sandwich at home, or buy a thermo-box for warm food (this saves me ~30€
every week)

\- if possible, drive by bike instead of the car or public transport

\- i changed my petroleum gas and power provider and save about ~100€/y

\- my opinion about coupons and "best deals" (on the web) is: they only
mislead you to buy something you don't need. I only use coupons for grocery,
and here you also need to be careful and compare the reduced price to prices
of other stores.

\- instead of going to the cinema/restaurant my girlfriend & I make picnics in
the park or nature near, sometimes a bottle of wine + glasses is sufficent ;)

\- second hand buying, ebay doesn't have the good deals anymore i think, but
there are other (local) platforms (maybe there is a plugin which cross checks
other platforms and puts it next to te amazon price tag?)

------
Ntrails
There are a bunch of apps that help you _spend money more efficiently_ \- but
I always feel they're in the lower % of effective saving, and the real answer
is 'choose not to buy that thing'.

So my question is - are you looking to help people buy thing x more
efficiently (and I'm not sure there's a lot of unment need there), or to help
people not spend at all (in which case monetisation becomes contrary to the
goal of the app).

~~~
alexhawdon
Okay, so a Chrome Extension that interrupts the user at the checkout stage
when buying luxury items?

The interruption could range from a simple nag screen, to an enforced cooling-
off period before you can proceed with the purchase. Perhaps in the future the
user could opt to move the money from their current account into a savings
account instead of making the purchase.

Or maybe not even let them purchase at all so you have to use your smartphone
to buy anything online. PITA; makes you think twice.

~~~
shabble
If there would be a realistic way to reliably identify 'luxury' purchases, you
could just have a really infuriating interstitial that:

* displayed the amount of money in a personally relatable manner - "ShineyTron300 costs the same amount as your last 2 months of food expenses, are you sure? (y/N)

* make it easy to cancel/stash or defer the purchase, including as you suggest, an enforced time delay before re-prompting

* make it hard to complete (require several captchas, solve a maths puzzle, or complete a couple of levels of Duolingo or something) before letting you through.

* Enforcing a personal 'luxury sales tax' that padded the total amount of some %, and transferred that amount to savings if you complete teh purchase.

Basically, go hunting for dark patterns, and use them against yourself.

I'm not sure how far you could go without it just being too annoying and
disabling/bypassing it though.

------
ehnto
I often frame my not-spending as a positive revenue, which works really well
for small items. Don't run your business this way though!

For example, I didn't buy a coffee on the way in, that is five dollars more at
the end of the day than I would have had otherwise, so the question becomes
"Do I want five dollars for doing nothing?"

I have some habitual spends like that which are much easier to cut down on if
I think I frame it that way.

------
vemv
There's [https://digit.co](https://digit.co) :

 _Every few days, Digit checks your spending habits and removes a few dollars
from your checking account if you can afford it_.

~~~
tedmiston
It's a cool concept, but I won't use Digit personally because it doesn't
provide clear financial benefit to me.

Digit sits on your money collecting the bulk of interest and giving you a
paltry 0.2% annually [0]. To be clear, I'm not dissing it... if it helps some
people save more than they would otherwise, then that's great, but it's just
not right for my use case. I feel similarly about Acorns.

That said, their concept is solid. I run the same strategy but a few times per
month by hand and into an account with a good interest rate.

[0]: See "Does Digit cost anything?" and "What are Savings Bonuses?" on
[https://digit.co/about/faq](https://digit.co/about/faq)

------
3eto
Buying second hand. From utensils to a motorbike, the amount of money I have
been saving is insane. Perhaps if the extension showed me the second hand
value of the item or when available, where to get it?

------
dsfyu404ed
Since nobody else said it.

STAY SINGLE!!!

If it flies, floats or f __ks it 's cheaper to rent than to buy.

If you can't stay single at least avoid kids...

I know that won't be a popular opinion but the numbers don't lie.

~~~
skrause
Why is staying single cheaper? My girlfriend and I save a lot of money by
being able to share an apartment and splitting the rent, internet connection
etc. Living alone would be much more expensive for each of us.

~~~
shoo
sharing a place tends to be a lot cheaper - but note that many people who are
single do not live alone.

------
CalRobert
I live in a city where I don't need a car.

I brew my own beer (fortunately I enjoy this activity, and I live in a place
with very high alcohol taxes).

I eat little meat.

~~~
markdog12
I also brew my own beer, saves me lots of money. I think when I did the
calculations, it cost $0.70(CA)/355ml, although I know I can get that lower.

------
meric
I never buy anything unnecessary if I'm counting how much financial impact
it's going to have. I don't have a car, but if I do, it's because I _need_ it
for the income, or because I have so much money buying a car feels like
getting a packet of chips. "Why not, looks like something fun to do.".

------
kyleblarson
Zillow: use it to buy a house that's not in the Bay Area and move to a place
with a reasonable cost of living.

------
timwaagh
you might look into helping people save people money on their work commute. i
save something like 232 euro each month by commuting outside of peak rail
times (meaning i spend just 99 euro each month on this). but I'm not sure what
the costs are for other options (if i bike it would cost more time, if i get a
car then there is a number of costs to take into account). an app might
analyse all the options and give people a good overview of the pros and cons.

------
pjc50
Essential life habits: reduce, reuse. Do I need to buy a new thing? Do I have
_space_ for the new thing? (housing floor space costs a lot here) Am I really
going to get good use out of it? Can I just use the old one or buy something
good enough from a charity shop? Can I make do with the $2 Chinese electronics
solution?

Beyond that, review your regular expenses. Anything daily or monthly. Is that
subscription still good value? Mortgage interest rate and payment schedule
optimal?

About once a year or two I'll pile my downloaded bank transactions into a
spreadsheet and look at the biggest categories.

I'll also reccomend moneysavingexpert.com to anyone; UK-focused but great
general advice. I'm not a big fan of coupons as they're mostly a way of
getting me to buy things I wouldn't otherwise, which isn't actually a saving.

------
ogandda
Here is a chrome extension - Honey - that deals with coupons.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpnenekpadlanbbkooimhnj?hl=en-
US)

------
johnloeber
Not quite on-topic, but I think that for a normal tech worker, it's usually
easier to increase your revenue stream than to increase your savings.

~~~
swolchok
On the other hand, if you're in CA and subject to a 50% marginal tax rate,
saving $1 has the same impact as making an additional $2.

------
hkmurakami
Automatic deduction into a 401k plan.

Separate bank accounts for everyday spending and long term saving.

------
ziggit
I like simply using the approach of pretending a portion of my income doesn't
exist at all. I've got a Money Market account that I shuffle money over to
automatically, and in a reasonable enough quantity that I don't have to run
the risk of tapping into it.

I make a point to never look at my paychecks and never check the balance of
the account, and instead simply deal with my post tax, post saving total.

It doesn't lend its self to an app, but it has served me well over the years.

------
samblr
Eat out LESS - invest in kitchen appliances :). I wonder now how I lived
without a FOOD PROCESSOR and ate out/prepared not so good food. Must haves
food processor, a flask, a good lunch box. Take home food to office, beach,
parks. Life gets so much better. Though one cannot avoid an occasional
icecream on a summer day ;)

Invest on health - buy an exercise bike, bench/squat rack instead of gym.
Saves a lot of time and money.

Property investment - dont know need to learn.

------
jheriko
not spending. :P

its a shame banking services are still pretty archaic in their infrastructure
- with secure access to user data through a good, secure, api, i'd love an app
that would give me alarming notifications if i was spending money out of my
account. :)

------
myroon5
I also created a Chrome Extension that searches for the best discounted
electronic gift card on Raise.com to help people save money.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/raisecom-
extension...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/raisecom-
extension/kknoembcnnnhefehcmegppchcmggaafo)

~~~
jmaccabee
Cool idea! Thanks

------
s3nnyy
Saving money is primarily a mindset. Tools might help but in my opinion they
are absolutely not needed.

Reading
[http://earlyretirementextreme.com/manifesto.html](http://earlyretirementextreme.com/manifesto.html)
helped me to get the "saving money mindset" into my bones more than any other
resource.

~~~
atmosx
Agreed, it is indeed a rather simple mindset: You have to spent less then what
you earn. However, that might not be as easy as it seems and hence you need
data:

    
    
        $ ledger reg Expenses:Personal:Food -b 2016.06.01 -e 2016.06.30
        16-Jun-03 Pita Gyros      Expenses:Personal:Food         € 10.00   € 10.00
        16-Jun-04 Pizza           Expenses:Personal:Food         € 35.00   € 45.00
        16-Jun-09 Pita Gyros      Expenses:Personal:Food         € 10.00   € 55.00
        16-Jun-10 Greek Tavern    Expenses:Personal:Food         € 25.00   € 80.00
    

Now I know that last month I spend 80€ in food month in _fast food_ which is
within my budget for fast-food. If you're not managing a very small amount of
money along with a very short list of expenses, then ofc you don't need
_tools_ otherwise tools give you data and as we all know, _data_ can be of
huge importance.

------
Havoc
I like the CamelCamelCamel.com extension for amazon. It does something useful
- shows me price history graphs so that I can see if that 40% discount is
actually a discount or a sales tactic...and they also allow me to set alert
for the stuff I buy in bulk but need regularly (toothpaste etc).

The amazon prices seem to fluctuate enough to make this worthwhile.

~~~
tedmiston
Didn't Amazon block CCC because of the price history graphs? I could have
sworn they were all blank last I used it.

~~~
Havoc
No just ebooks they can't track

------
orthur_b
I am using this spreadsheet
[https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/2tymvf/poo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/2tymvf/poormans_budgeting_spreadsheet/)
for budgeting

------
Rmilb
I live in a 126 sqft Tiny house I built my self with my partner. Saves an
incredible amount on rent.

------
Kylea_Waller
My fav is our startup MyMoneyZen :P Originally developed it just for myself to
use 10 years ago, then more and more people started asking me to set it up
with them and I couldn't serve them all, so decided to make it available
online.

Keen to hear anyone's thoughts...

MyMoneyZen is an online course, with built in software, which teaches people
how to set up an automatic system to manage their money for them. So they can
be good with money… fast.

[https://www.facebook.com/mymoneyzen/videos/688678827952669/](https://www.facebook.com/mymoneyzen/videos/688678827952669/)

------
Gustomaximus
For me a good way to save money is 'not have it' and not get used to spending
it. Each pay cycle I move set %'s of my income into 5 separate accounts.

These are;

Daily spending, risky investments, safe investments, lifestyle savings (e.g.
holidays or other luxury spends) and bills/fixed expenses.

Often I will dip into lifestyle savings if I overrun my daily spending.

The best simple extension would be to have something that tracked my current
spend for a month against time left in a month for my 'daily spending'
account. But not sure I'd want to give just anyone access to my bank details.

------
grecy
In the past I quit my job and spent 2 years driving from Alaska to Argentina
on my savings.

Now I've done it again and will spend 2 years driving around Africa.

By far the number one question I get asked is how do I save money to do all of
this - it's become a huge topic of discussion.

I wrote an eBook on the topic - called "Work Less to Live Your Dreams" which
describes exactly how I'm able to do it.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4AL8BE](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4AL8BE)

------
pm24601
How about modifying the displayed price to reflex the cost of the item after
cc interest.

If person is going to put something on a cc, display the price after 6 months
of interest has been applied.

------
sawthat
Don't use credit cards. I also recommend YNAB:
[https://www.youneedabudget.com](https://www.youneedabudget.com)

~~~
tedmiston
More precisely: Don't use credit cards to carry a balance.

By not using credit cards, you're giving away 1–5% free reward money from cash
back programs. Not to mention the additional purchase protection you receive
from shoddy vendors, like bars padding tips.

~~~
sawthat
Best way to not carry a balance is to not have a credit card. It's very easy
to say "don't carry a balance" but most people do. When I used credit cards I
often carried a balance, despite my best efforts. If you have the discipline
to NEVER carry a balance, more power to you. But most people don't and the
points just aren't worth it.

~~~
tedmiston
That's fair.

I've never felt like it's taken much discipline for me personally, and I've
never carried a balance on any credit card. I try to live far under my means
and mostly just spend money on food, coffee, travel, and a laptop. Most of the
rest of my "things" are hand-me-downs.

One "hack" that works for me is reviewing each transaction and paying the card
in full every week. If I see it especially high one week then I spend more
conservatively the next. I don't do any explicit budgeting, but being
conscious of the big picture helps me.

------
arc_of_descent

      * Walk a bit more so I save money on my drive to work
      * Work from home most of the week
      * I've stopped eating/ordering outside food dramatically
      * Stopped smoking cigarettes almost 15 months now
      * Reduce alcohol consumption
      * Turn off fans, AC, TV at home/office
    

And of course, investing. I usually force myself to invest whatever money I
get in stocks or forex trading.

~~~
neppo
How did you get started in trading, can you recommend any good resources?

I'd like to do it myself, but am unsure how to get going.

~~~
shoo
I can't offer any advice specifically for trading, but for a more general
introduction investing in the stock market, you might want to read "A Random
Walk Down Wall Street" by Burton G. Malkiel.

------
LukeFitzpatrick
I stumbled upon this, which I think is pretty cool, www.wealthnation.com
(every time you spend money on your card, it rounds up your purchases to the
nearest dollar and saves them for you). On the other hand, you also have Robo-
advisors like "Acorns" who do the same thing, but instead of saving it - they
invest it shares.

------
cdnsteve
I physically put a piece of electrical tape over my Visa card number. It
sounds completely weird but I encourage everyone to do this. You'd be amazed
that when you whip out your card all excited to buy something that it really,
really makes you embarrassed to use it in public. Aka save the money, or you
can't afford it.

------
amerkhalid
Before I purchase anything, I read reviews, both positive and negative for
balanced views. A lot of time negative reviews change my mind, even when
product is rated highly overall. Though it is not intentional for me but I
guess if someone is trying to save money, show them negative reviews first.

------
bechampion
I do something that's been working for me: i save X amount every month ... if
I save > X then it makes me happy , the rule is never save less than X ,
whatever it takes. I don't buy expensive clothes anymore or go on the piss
massively you now it's all about balance.

------
kearneyandy
I like [https://paribus.co/](https://paribus.co/) It automatically requests
refunds for things you buy online that drop in price. It's nice because it's
very passive and it's basically found money when it works.

~~~
vemv
Seems a scumbaggy app to me (even if it's legal). If you buy something for $X,
it's because you can afford $X at that point in time and you agree that that's
its value.

~~~
imgabe
Many credit cards offer "price protection" or something where if the price
drops with X days after you buy something they'll refund you the difference.
It doesn't seem scumbaggy to take advantage of a service a company offers you.

------
danieltillett
The best way is get your income above your interest in spending money. I buy
everything I want and I end up saving money because I earn more than I spend.
It helps that I am not that interested in consumer goods, but I can't think of
a better way to save money :)

------
JamesBarney
Instead of buying a house, bought a triplex. I save about $2,000 a month in
rent/mortgage from this one decision, and it only taxed my willpower once. And
I get to go out with my friends and loved ones as much as I want without
running into any money problems.

------
paloaltokid
My strategy: * use mint.com for budgeting and expense tracking. * a budget
line item is "savings". * set up an automated transfer from my direct deposit
checking account to my savings account. * fire and forget.

------
fuzzfactor
Be a producer, not a consumer.

------
koolba
Create a chrome extension that somehow keeps people working as if you're busy
making money, you're generally not spending it.

Something that disables access to HN would probably be enough.

------
patatino
I know myself and my spending habits, so I have an account at another bank, no
online banking, no credit or debit card. If I ever need that money I have to
go to the bank.

------
kwc98
Growing a pony-tail. I have not had to pay for a hair-cut in more than 1.5
years. When I get a little neck trim-up they only cost 10 dollars. Haircuts
are expensive.

------
sdegutis
Show me a free alternative to some product show-cased on HN.

------
return0
[https://withplum.com/](https://withplum.com/)

------
bybjorn
Favorite way? No apps, just automatic monthly savings the day after I get my
salary.

------
tmaly
from this book the richest man in babylon, I like the simplicity of just
putting aside 10 percent to start.

It build up over time, and it is dead simple to implement.

------
start123
Automate. Automate. Automate.

------
artur_makly
simple..move to a country where your USD = (3-5)x.

------
fleitz
Ad Block Plus, no ads, no desire to purchase the products I didn't see.

Seriously, not buying stuff / eating out is the best way for me to save money,
especially if I spent the time that I would have been shopping / going out,
working.

Something that might be an idea is linking to a savings account and adding a
button beside the purchase link on amazon, etc, like "Save money instead, if
you saved $56.32, you'd have $2345.54 in total savings" it would be epic if it
went into a GIC or something not very liquid.

~~~
charlieflowers
That is an EXCELLENT idea. You'd get a bunch of customers on reddit.com/frugal

------
Zelmor
GnuCash, definitely. Habit of my lifetime is to enter all expenses and incomes
on a daily basis. It makes you accountable, and once a month I can sit down
and check on financial plannings, where we are and where we ought to be.

YNAB is a paid SaaS whereas Gnucash is free, libre and has a nice mobile
client to accompany it. Mobile also uploads to cloud storage, from where you
can auto-import on desktop client startup.

~~~
ShinyCyril
YNAB still updates their 'classic' desktop version, which also has a nice
mobile app to accompany it.

------
sickbeard
Frankly.. do boring things that don't cost you a thing. Stay away from vices
(bars, pay to pay games, tech gadgets you don't need etc). Spend money on
things that last, a nice bed, nice shoes, reasonable car, your family.

Live.. but don't waste.

