How to Save $5,000 in a Year (8 Easy Ways that Work)

Yes, it’s possible and even easy to save $5,000 in a year if you know how and what to do.

This article reveals some of the very important techniques and tips to help you easily achieve this goal of saving 5k in just 12 months.

 

Why Strive to Save $5,000 in a Year?

Saving money is very crucial in life as it’s a significant goal for several people, however, many individuals nowadays lack discipline.

Most times it helps to have a program to follow in order to increase possibilities of success.

In this article, we will walk you through how you can successfully save up $5,000 annually. We will also discuss some saving tips that will be very useful.

$5,000 could sound like a huge sum, well, it is. However, over the course of one year when calculated, it comes down to less than $100 weekly.

The whole saving scheme is a lot more realistic when you look at the saving scheme weekly.

 

8 Easy Ways to Save up to 5,000 Dollars in a Year

Now that you’ve got the basics of how you could save $5,000 annually, by laying out an amount to save weekly, let’s now check out other ways to save up $5,000 in a year.

If you’re an individual that lives paycheck-to-paycheck, you might be wondering how you’ll come up with cash that you’ll need to save weekly.

This gives rise to these other methods of saving:

 

1. Adequately Monitor Your Spending

Spending with a good budget is superb, but even with this, you can’t still be sure you’re following your budget if you don’t track your expenses.

It’s advisable that you note down your expenses daily, this way, you don’t lose focus, and at the end of the week or month, you’ll be capable of seeing exactly how you spend cash, and most importantly, what you spent the cash on.

Tracking your spending makes it super easy for you to notice some areas where you might be laying off excess cash.

You can figure out these areas Without spending a dime, or probably without spending as much.

Once you figure this out, you can re-structure your spending habit, and ultimately, be left with the cash saved.

Also See: Importance of a Budget and Best Budget Planning Resources.

 

2. Reduce Your Phone Bills

How much do you spend monthly on phone bills or wireless services?

If you’re with one of the big-name carriers, you would probably save lots of cash annually by easily switch to discounted carrier offering the same service.

Imagine switching from a leading carrier to a lower carrier and instantly ripping your phone bills into half. Instead of paying $140 monthly for phone bills, you get to pay only $70 monthly.

That’s a total savings of about $840 annually.

Choosing a discounted carrier has been one of the best ways to save cash, and the most interesting part is that you’ll be able to effectively save cash monthly.

I was initially concerned about the carrier’s quality, but that hasn’t been a major issue at all.

 

3. Create a Budget

If you’re not currently on any budget, creating a budget should be your first move.

With a budget, you’ll be able to make the most of your earnings, and as a matter of fact, live within your means.

Also See: 30 Day Rule in Saving Money and Top Budget Apps For College Students.

Your budget gives you a strategic plan on how to spend your money, including cash that you intend saving.

Creating a budget is quite easy as you can easily go online and get budget templates.

 

4. Save Money on Feeding

Food is a major constituent of everyone’s budget, and being an essential constituent, there re several ways to reduce the amount of cash that you expend on food every month.

If you usually eat all kinds of meals at restaurants or purchase food at work daily, you can save up a huge amount of cash by simply preparing your meals in your home rather than placing orders.

This doesn’t mean you should avoid restaurants totally, but reduce the amount of meals you buy outside, and be cautious of the amount of cash you spend when you’re out.

You should also try to reduce your grocery bills, and this could be done with little effort. The best way to save grocery bills is by shopping at discounted grocery stores.

The combination of discounted prices at grocery stores and strict spending on food orders, saves you lots of dollars annually.

 

 

5. Get Rid of Satellite TV

Another easy way of saving up cash is by getting rid of satellite TVs.

You might think canceling satellite TV will make you miss some channels, well, that’s not the case.

You might end up not missing anything if you replace it with an HD antenna which goes for about $90 with very affordable monthly subscriptions.

With the HD antenna you will not miss Netflix and some other shows.

We also don’t get to miss anything during the football season as the HD antenna offers a Sling subscription which allows users to watch the ESPN channels.

We are able to save a good amount of cash monthly, even when we’re on the Sling subscription.

Netflix is the major TV expense, and once it’s excluded, we will be able to save a lot annually or monthly.

Also See: Budget Help for Senior Citizens and Purpose of Retirement Planning.

 

6. Get Credit Card Rewards/Bonuses

Another easy way to find extra cash and save more is by simply taking advantage of several credit card promotions.

You can make anywhere from $150 – $450, and this is just as a one-time signup bonus for acquiring a new credit card.

You can also make cash back on all of your earnings.

You could make use of several credit cards to receive cash anywhere from 2%- 5% on any purchase.

Over the course of 12 months, this credit card discounts makes a lot of sense especially when you make all purchase using credit cards.

Also See: Tips to Help You Overcome Worrying about Money.

 

7. Make Use of Cash Back Sites and Apps

One of the best ways to save cash is by taking advantage of cash back sites and apps.

There are several apps online that allow individuals earn cash back on several purchases.

However, there are three major cash back apps that are very popular and also effective.

These cash back applications include:

 

Ibotta

Unlike Rakuten, Ibotta requires a signup bonus of $20.

It’s also a great cash back application that effectively helps its users save lots of cash especially at grocery stores, improvement stores, and department store.

Ibotta also helps on online shops.

This cash back application also offer its users a wide range of stores and products. As a user, you can claim whatever offer you want.

 

Rakuten

Rakuten requires a signup bonus of $10, so it’s not a free cashback application.

With a Rakuten account, you can save lots of cash on in-store/online purchases.

There are several stores and online platforms that have a partnership with Rakuten, and if you shop on these platforms, you get discounted prices.

Rakuten also has a browser extension that makes saving less difficult.

With the help of this extension, you’ll receive a notification on whether you’re on a platform that provides cash back services through Rakuten.

All you need to do is activate your shopping trip by simply clicking on a button, and you’re up to save.

Rakuten monitors your actions and will automatically apply discount codes once to carry out this activation.

Also See: Top Online Dollar Stores & Top Jobs that Don’t Suck.

 

TopCashback

This cash back application is quite similar to Rakuten.

With a TopCashback account, you can save lots of cash at several websites as they partner with different online platform.

Signing up for both Rakuten and TopCashback is the best as both platforms work hand-in-hand, and cash back could be available via any of them.

 

Get Affordable Insurance

Have you ever scouted around for low-prices insurance policies?

Especially when you’ve lots of assets to insure.

It’s possible that you can save much more cash when you work with the right insurance company, or by making some refinements in your existing insurance policies.

You can check up on your existing insurance policies to ascertain that you’ve not over-insured any asset.

With the right insurance company, you can save up to $100 annually, reducing the coverage for stuff in your household.

Not much coverage is needed in your home when you take a critical look at things so why not save your premiums by eliminating unnecessary coverages?

You can source out for quotes from several insurance companies, compare these quotes with your earnings, and go with the one that works best for you.

 

Sell Off Stuff You Barely Use

Most people have a lot of things laying useless in their homes.

The interesting thing is homeowners see these irrelevant stuffs as junk, but these stuffs actual have values.

One of the easiest ways to earn cash is buy running a thorough check around your home and selling off things you don’t use again.

If it happens that you possess a lot of irrelevant stuff, you could decide to host a yard sale, this way, you’ll get rid of all these stuff in no time.

From this, you can make up to $400 annually.

Although hosting a yard sale is the fastest way to get rid of these stuffs, but it’s not the best way to make enough cash from your stuff, as most of the stuff you’ll sell at your yard will worth more outside.

Also See: Things to Sell to Students & Online Stores to Sell Stuff Locally.

 

8. Begin a Side Hustle

While trying to reduce your expense, you can as well speed up your total savings by simply increasing your total revenue.

There are different side hustle ideas that you can venture into, and will be a permit for you.

Here are some of the side hustles of which you could make earn extra cash from:

 

Pet Walking and Sitting

You might be thrilled at how much cash you can earn from pet sitting and walking.

A couple of individuals were interviewed on why they decided to choose pet sitting as a side hustle, well, their response was alarming as they a majority of them said they realise about $40,000 annually, carrying out pet care in their homes.

You can start this side hustle by simply creating a profile on Rover and allow potential clients to locate.

One interesting thing about side hustles is that no special skill is needed.

Also See: Funny Ways to Save Some Extra Money.

 

Freelancing

You can offer different types of services online as a freelancer.

The best still remains freelance writing for money. Being a freelance writer is great because there are several websites and blogs looking for articles to post daily.

Other freelancing options include: web design, web development, social media marketing, graphic design, photography, and lots more.

 

Flea Market Flipping

We already discussed the possibility of selling off irrelevant stuff in your home.

Well, you can actually transform this into a side hustle that will earn you extra cash daily, simply by selling and purchasing.

You can purchase items online or at yard sales, flea markets, and thrift stores, then sell them off at higher prices.

Most people make furniture basically for money flipping purposes, this brings lots of profit. It’s all about buying used furniture, repainting them and selling them off at nice rates.

Related: Wood Crafts that Sell at Flea Markets including Baby Items to Sew and Sell.

Flipper University is a website where you can learn all the basics of flipping, and how you can earn a fortune from it.

Flipper University was established by a couple who had the website basically for flipping jobs which occurs weekly, 20-30 hours.

The platform is the best place to learn everything you need to know about flipping.

 

Apply For Online Surveys

This side hustle is also very common even though it’s not the most lucrative option.

Online surveys are quite flexible as you can carry out online surveys while watching a TV program or whenever you’ve a free time.

Some popular survey sites that you might come across during your search include:

• MyPoints
• Survey Junkie
• Swagbucks
• Inbox Dollars

 

Conclusion

Saving is very important in our everyday lifestyle, spending recklessly could render your broke in a short period of time.

Looking to start your money-saving journey?

Check out tips discussed in this article and apply them to your everyday life activities.