Bills, bills, bills. The cycle of life.
Since a majority of our paychecks go straight to bills, it’s a huge deal if there are any savings to be found.
With recurring bills, it can be hard to notice the “bill creep” as well. This means your bill each year can “creep up” in price without you noticing due to automatic payments.
For instance, your internet could rise by $3 a month. Your cable TV? Another $4 a month. You might not even notice and that’s exactly what companies are hoping for.
But you can prevent that from happening.
That’s why we’ve rounded up 7 ways that anyone can apply immediately to start saving on their monthly bills.
1. Affordable Car Insurance Exists – Here’s How You Could Save $536
You’re sharing the same roads with a lot of different people. Distracted people, oblivious people, road-rage people, etc. It’s best to cover yourself with insurance when everyone is operating a giant motor vehicle.
And chances are, you’re probably overpaying on your current insurance premium. I know it’s convenient to stick with the same provider because it’s a hassle to deal with finding another. I definitely get it.
However, you can search for quotes easily on Solid Quote. They help match you among dozens of regional agencies and insurance carriers to filter the best matches to save on your car insurance.
It takes less than 4 minutes to fill out the form and you’ll see a list of matches that show online quotes, email, and potential phone quotes.
Solid Quote can save drivers up to $536 a year compared to their current insurance premiums. Once you see your list of potential matches, choose the online ones you want or wait for more information via email or phone.
It’s a pretty simple process, so try it out to see how much you could be saving on the road!
Average savings in a month: $44.67
What it could add up to in a year: $536
2. You Gotta Eat! Get Up to $240 Cash Back in Grocery Savings
If you’re following nutrition gurus or meal planners on Instagram, you know that your shopping list gets a little longer with each inspiration. I know mine does.
But I don’t feel too guilty though because my shiny things syndrome and basically everything I buy normally, give me a chance of getting cash back.
It’s simple. All you have to do is take a picture of your grocery receipt and Ibotta will pay you cash.
Here’s how it works:
Before you go to the store, search for your shopping list items in the Ibotta app. After your store visit, take a photo of your receipt to get cash back.
Ibotta is free to download and you’ll also get up to $20 in Welcome Bonuses after sign up!
Some offers we found:
- 25 cents back on any item
- $3 – $5 back on various wine
- $2 back on KIND Protein Bars
- 25 cents – $4 back on ice cream
- $2 back on Herbal Essence Haircare
Popular stores are Walmart and Target, but Ibotta also works at restaurants, online shopping sites, and at the bar! On average, active Ibotta users save up to $240 a year. What would you do with that extra money?
3. Cut Unwanted Subs from Your Life & Save an Average $708 a Year
They say that 84% of people forget they have some recurring subscriptions still charging them. Unfortunately, I was one of them.
To fix that and to get a better picture of my overall spending, I downloaded Trim, an app that focuses on lowering bills, monitoring subscriptions, and my favorite, monitoring internet/cable outages.
After connecting my Chase bank account (it’s safe; they use bank-level 256-bit SSL encryption with read-only access), the Trim dashboard displayed clear information on my spending, upcoming bills, and all my recurring subscriptions.
From it, I realized I still had a very niche streaming service that I haven’t touched in about 7 months. (Thanks, free trial offer…) I immediately canceled it through Truebill and saved $70 from that sub.
Got an annoying gym membership you’ve been meaning to cancel? No problem, they’ll do it for you too.
Trim will also negotiate for lower bills on your behalf (no more waiting on the phone!) and monitor any internet and cable outages too. If there are outages in your area, they’ll work to get credit to your account. On average, this accounts to $96 savings a year on outages alone!
Basic service is free, and when Trim successfully finds bill savings or refunds for you, they’ll take a 40% slice from your annual savings. For instance, if they saved you $100 on a bill for the year, they’ll take $40. Reasonable for the savings they found you!
Overall, having a financial “watchdog” of sorts will keep you on track and help you save on unnecessary spending. It takes only a few minutes for Trim to analyze so check it out!
4. Stop Paying Full Price on Purchases (Here’s $10 Cash Back)
Everyone buys stuff. But you, you never pay full price. Why, when there are cash back opportunities all around?
Whether you’re a retail therapy or just-the-basics kinda shopper, feel good about your purchases because you can earn some useful money back for them, no matter what you buy.
So who’s been around for 20 years and have over 12 million members because they know what they’re doing?
We love this cash back site for its simplicity and for the fact that you get cash back for the things you’re already purchasing. It’s pretty close to getting free money!
In fact, they’re giving our readers a $10 welcome bonus to anyone that signs up to be a member.
Membership is free and you earn up to 25% cash back at over 2,500+ stores including Amazon, Walmart, Kohl’s, and Sephora. Plus, you’ll find coupons, free shipping codes, and awesome sales.
No need to fill out any rebate forms or redeem points to get your money. You just earn cash and get paid by check or Paypal.
Ebates has pretty sweet sales that will be hard to find anywhere else too. Be sure to sign up now and grab that $10 welcome bonus. Easy!
Welcome bonus: $10
Average savings a month (depends on purchases): $33
What it could add up to in a year: $396
Additional referral earnings: $25 per referral
5. Get the Big Picture – Then Work on Fixing Your Score
It’s smart to keep an eye on your credit score to make sure it doesn’t fall too much. Did you know that a low credit score could affect your ability to actually rent an apartment or even get a car? You could also end up paying higher interest on things such as car loans, credit cards, and mortgages. Yea, let’s try to prevent that from happening.
Credit Sesame is a free credit monitoring service that helps you improve and maintain your score.
You’ll get an easy-to-read view of your total debt plus everything that is contributing to your current score like credit usage, credit age, inquiries, and payment history. It also comes with personal recommendations to help increase your score.
Credit Sesame alerted me immediately when my score decreased because of a credit card and I was able to fix it right away. It’s free to use so this is definitely a must-have in everyone’s life.
6. Buy Stuff Normally = Get Gift Cards You Actually Want
If you have room for 1 more app on your phone, then it needs to be this.
Actually, delete another app to make room for this one. It’s that good.
It’s called Drop, a free app that gives you gift cards on stuff you already buy from your favorite stores and brands.
Your everyday purchases from Amazon, Target, Trader Joe’s, and Walmart? You’ll get points for that. Points translate to gift cards so the more you collect, the more you can redeem!
There are a ton of offers, and you’ll get to pick 5 Power Offers in the beginning. For instance, my 5 are Target, Uber, Trader Joe’s, WholeFoods, and Starbucks. Each time I pay for these places? Automatic points for gift cards.
You’re not restricted to just 5, but those will be your recurring/forever offers. You’ll get access to many other offers that you can activate ranging from Entertainment, Personal Care, Grocery, Apparel and more.
The only thing you need to do is link any credit or debit card you usually use for buying stuff and that’s it! Drop will automatically recognize when you buy from your Power 5 and activated offers to reward.
There’s literally no downside to using this free app to get more gift cards. Use it on top of your loyalty points and credit card points for even more rewards!
7. Grow Your Savings 2.12% A Year Without Fees
Traditional banks seem to take every opportunity they can to squeeze more money out of you. With everything from a monthly service fee to various hidden fees nibbling away at your account balance.
Enter Varo which was founded to provide a fee-free banking service2.That’s right, Varo has no monthly service fees, no foreign transaction fees, and no ATM withdrawal fees.
On top of having no fees, Varo lets you make more money on your money. Start earning 2.12% Annual PercentageYield (APY)¹ on your savings and then move up to 2.80% APY¹ based on qualifying activity. To put this into perspective, the average APY of the 5 biggest national banks is 0.09%.*
Varo has a few sweet extra features that are the icing on the cake:
- Get your paycheck up to 2 days earlier4
- No minimum balance requirement
- Over 55,000+ AllPoint® ATMs worldwide to use your Varo Visa® debit card
- Offers personal loans to pre-qualified customers who want to consolidate debt
- Varo will send any paper check to anyone in the U.S. on your behalf
- Varo Personal Forecast tracks your spending to manage your cash flow
- “Save the Change” rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar and saves the difference to your Varo savings account
If you’re sick of being charged banking fees and want to make more out of your money, check out Varo. It takes less than 5 minutes to learn more and apply for free.
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