Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money?

#51

Post by fakename » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 9:44 PM UTC

iamdave wrote: post #21

s_kilk wrote: post #13

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.

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, an…

I record all my spending manually with Expense Manager [ https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.markushi.ex... ] 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.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money?

#52

Post by charlesdm » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 9:45 PM UTC

patmcc wrote: post #23

drinchev wrote: post #15

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 bragg…

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.

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.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money?

#53

Post by tedmiston » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

sawthat wrote: post #42

Don't use credit cards. I also recommend YNAB: https://www.youneedabudget.com

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.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money?

#54

Post by charlieflowers » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 9:47 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #10

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 $…

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

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money?

#55

Post by duckingtest » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

drinchev wrote: post #15

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 bragg…

That would be a very bad advice to Michael Tyson or every other athlete who went bankrupt after spending hundreds of millions.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money?

#56

Post by xur17 » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

ap0 wrote: post #44

tedmiston wrote: post #38

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 purch…

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

I use the Citi Double Cash which gives 2% cash back, with no annual fee.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money?

#57

Post by tedmiston » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

vemv wrote: post #30

There's 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 .

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

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money?

#58

Post by tue4Iezi » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 9:54 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #27

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.

Any book recommendations on this?

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money?

#59

Post by kamaal » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 10:01 PM UTC

drinchev wrote: post #15

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 bragg…

With all due respect to your father but that is seriously very bad advice.

It's almost impossible to fill a container leaking all the time.

Also make note a lot of people have gotten rich by saving and investing than have people who went into doing start ups or 'revenue stream' or such.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite way to save money?

#60

Post by kamaal » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 10:07 PM UTC

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.