15 Easy Ways To Save Money & Thrive On One Income

Who doesn’t like to save money?

I know I do!

I’ll admit, I’m always looking for new ways to save money- especially during the holidays! 

The moment my hubby and I decided that I wouldn’t be going back to work full time, I knew that I needed to get creative and figure out how to save money on our everyday expenses.

Since then, I’ve incorporated a few frugal lifestyle hacks into my daily routine, and they’ve helped us save a TON of money over the past couple of years.

So if you’re a stay-at-home mom trying to find ways to successfully live on one income, or if you just want to save a little extra cash during the holidays, check out the tips below and watch your savings grow!

Buy In Bulk

Buying in bulk is easily one of my favorite ways to save money. 

I actually adopted the habit of buying in bulk back in college. 

At the beginning of each semester, I’d stock up on toiletries and household items like toothpaste, tissue, paper towels, body wash and deodorant. 

I’d be sure to by enough to last for at least 4 to 5 months at a time. 

Granted, the initial shopping trip wasn’t cheap, but I saved a bunch of money over the next couple of months. 

A super easy way to do this is to create a sinking fund for these items.

That way, once it’s time to shop for them again, you’ll know how much you’ll expect to spend, it won’t hurt your budget, and you’ll get everything you need in one trip!  

Ditch The Fast Food

One of the quickest ways to save money is to ditch the fast food. 

Besides being terrible for your health, fast food is ridiculously priced. 

It may seem feasible when it’s just you and your hubby, but once you bring kids into the picture, you can easily find yourself spending $20 bucks on a simple fast food order.

If you eat fast food often, I challenge you to avoid eating fast food for a month. 

Be sure to go back and calculate how much you spend on fast food the month prior so that you can compare your savings for the next month. 

Don’t be surprised if you find that you easily spend $100 or more on fast food!

Imagine what you could do with that extra $100 bucks!

Need a little meal inspiration? 

Check out this list of over 40 Toddler Meal Ideas!

Use Homemade Cleaners

Experimenting with different homemade cleaning recipes has been one of my favorite things to do lately. 

Since becoming a mom, I’ve become extremely sensitive to the toxic ingredients in popular cleaning items, and try to avoid them at all costs. 

Besides, you’d be surprised what a little baking soda, vinegar, and lemon juice can do!

Check out this post for home made cleaning recipes that you can whip up with things you probably have in your pantry right now. 

Switch To Cloth Diapers

Did you know that most parents spend over $1000 on diapers in their child’s first year of life?

That’s not including wipes y’all!

Can I be transparent here?

I’m one of those parents!

We go through so many diapers and wipes that it’s not even funny!

I’ve been researching cloth diapering, and I’m REALLY considering switching once baby #2 arrives!

In addition to being better for the environment, cloth diapers are considerably cheaper than regular diapers – by almost half! 

Make It From Scratch

You can literally save half on your next grocery bill by opting to make some of your favorite foods from scratch.

While cooking from scratch is obviously a bit more time consuming than throwing a box of easy mac in a pot, you’d be surprised at the amount of money that you’d save.

Plus you’d still be giving your family all of their favorites, just without all of the yucky preservatives.

Some of the easiest (and cheapest) things to make from scratch are sauces (think spaghetti and alfredo), nut butters, granola and salad dressings. 

Make Your Own Baby Food

To piggy back off of my last point, making baby food from scratch can save you a nice chuck of change. 

Those small cans of baby food can cost a pretty penny! 

Instead, buy fresh fruit and veggies, and make your baby food from scratch. 

Not only will your little bundle of joy get fresh baby food that hasn’t been sitting in the store for who knows how long, you’ll have peace of mind knowing exactly what’s in it!

I used my Nutrininja to make most of my son’s baby food once he started eating solids. 

Then I used this handy baby food squeeze station to store it all until it was ready to be eaten. 

Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed making his food, annnd I totally felt like a Pinterest mom!

Ditch The Landline

In the technologically advanced world that we live in, it’s probably pretty safe to assume that both you, and your spouse have cell phones.

That said, paying for both a landline and cell phone service can be, kind of, well, redundant. 

Besides, cell phone bills are pretty expensive on their own. 

Consider doing away with the landline, and utilizing your cell phones as your primary contact numbers.

Switch TO Energy Efficient Light Bulbs

I know we’d all love to save more on our power bill, but what do you do when turning off the lights isn’t enough?

Make the switch to energy efficient light bulbs!

While the more common incandescent light bulb is cheaper initially, energy efficient light bulbs last longer and use less energy. 

CFL and LED light bulbs provide the best bang for your buck, and use almost 75% less energy!

Cut The Cable

Yup, I said it!

In my humble option, cable tv is a lot more expensive than what it’s worth. 

Besides, if you have cable, and you’re paying for Netflix and Hulu, you’re practically paying for the same thing twice. 

Instead, keep your high-speed internet and ditch the pricy cable plan.

Cutting your cable bill could easily save you $100 or more a month.

Cancel Unnecessary Subscriptions

As much as I love Amazon Prime, there’s no reason that their membership fee should be coming out of both my and my hubby’s bank account. 

Furthermore, most of the time, we forget that we have a subscription until that monthly fee is taken out of our accounts. 

Instead, keep what you need and ditch what you don’t!

For those subscriptions that you MUST have, try and sign up for their family plans to save money.

Attend Free Events & Use Memberships

If you have young children, you know that toys get old quick, and trips to the zoo can add up!

That said, that doesn’t mean that you can save money, and still get out of the house. 

Although we frequent the park and free splash pad, our city also offers ton of free events year round – most of which are kid friendly. 

In addition to attending free events, we also utilize memberships to other attractions in our city to save extra money- and reap special member benefits.

While the initial membership fees may be a bit pricy, you’ll likely be getting a huge discount on pricing. 

Besides, memberships make awesome Christmas gifts, so be sure to add them to your list!

Plan Meals In Advance

I’ll admit, it took us a while to really get a handle on our grocery bill. 

We’d just go to the grocery store, get what we ‘needed’, and a bunch of other random stuff that we wanted.

Most of which went to waste because we’d forget about it.

Now we plan our meals out in advance. 

That way, once we’re in the store, we know exactly what we need to buy, and we aren’t busting our grocery budget each month.

Clip Coupons

While an episode of Extreme Couponing can make you think that by clipping your first few coupons, you’ll end up getting $150 worth of groceries for a nickel, I’m here to assure you that it’s highly unlikely that that’ll be the case. 

Couponing requires a lot of work up front, but the savings speak for themselves.

However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t save some serious cash as an amateur couponer.

Start small and check out your grocery store’s weekly ad to see which coupons they have each week. 

One of my favorite apps, that actually posts weekly ads for stores in your city, as well as potential couponing opportunities, is the Krazy Koupon Lady App.

One of my favorite features about the Krazy Coupon Lady app is the fact that they spell out the exact coupons that you need to take in order to save BIG! 

It’s really a game changer! 

Check out this post to learn about some other amazing apps out there that will even pay you to shop!

Price Match

Price matching is like the 1st cousin of couponing!

Okay, maybe they aren’t 1st cousins, but you can seriously save a pretty penny by price matching.

I’d see commercials about price matching all the time, but I was too lazy to actually try it myself. 

One of my best friends would always price match whenever we’d make grocery trips together, and as a result, she’d end up saving a huge chunk of money. 

Price matching does require a tiny bit of research (more like a quick google search), but once you start seeing those savings, it can easily become addictive!

Pre-Loved Items

Pre-loved items, AKA, hand-me-down’s are a great way to save money – especially if you have kids.

Since finding out that we had another little boy on the way, we were beyond relieved when we realized that we wouldn’t have to buy any clothes. 

Beyond that, our carseat hasn’t expired, and we kept our son’s crib – even though he hardly ever slept in it. 

Your local Goodwill and Salvation Army are great places to get quality, pre-loved items for cheap!

There you have it! 

15 money saving hacks that you can start incorporating into your routine to save some serious cash!

What are some of your favorite ways to save money?

Leave your tips and tricks in the comments below!