My startup has been kicking around the idea of developing a Chrome extension to help save you money.<p>I've been wondering - what are some of everyone's favorite apps or extensions for saving money? I've heard of Ebates, Honey, and Ibotta. Is there a need that's currently going unmet?<p>Would love to get potential user feedback. Thanks!!
This app changed literally my life. YNAB! <a href="https://www.youneedabudget.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.youneedabudget.com</a><p>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.<p>This, and in addition, read <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Early-Retirement-Extreme-philosophical-independence-ebook/dp/B0046LU7H0" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Early-Retirement-Extreme-philosophica...</a><p>You don't need more, trust me.<p>But, of course, what these two have in common, is simply:<p>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.<p>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<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.
My father always says : "saving money is the beginning of being poor".<p>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.<p>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 )
Since this turned into a personal finance thread, how about favorite ways to <i>spend</i> money?<p>Starbucks. Every morning. Latte and a danish/cookie/muffin. $7.00 * 30 days = $210.00<p>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<p>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<p>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<p>Now that we're past the daily items, let's go into the monthly expenses.<p>SUV instead of a small car. $600/month and another $250/month in insurance, $60/week in gas. $1100/month<p>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.<p>Upgrade your phone. Every year. Buy new accessories for it, and get the mammoth dataplan. This can be $150/month.<p>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.<p>Drink heavily! What else are you going to do with $70/night? Inebriate yourself a few times a week.<p>Piss away $25/week on lottery tickets. Might as well try, right?<p>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!
I just record all my discretionary purchases in a spreadsheet and recoil in horror at the end of the month.<p>My monthly spend has been steadily dropping since I started doing this about six months ago.<p>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.
1. Fatwallet<p>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.<p>2. Jet Anywhere<p>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.<p>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.<p>By the way — they do not have a Chrome extension and I have interest in working on one.<p>3. Cash back credit card<p>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.<p>I've received $100+ back from the first two methods, and even more from the third.<p>---<p>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.
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.
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.
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....
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).<p>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 <i>might</i> help people.
1. Learn cooking: Saves a lot of money, healthy and a lot of long term advantages.<p>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.<p>3. Keep a diary: Keep a habit tracker, try to get a continuous streak of $0 expense days.<p>4. Pick up a hobby like music: Gets you entertainment without bills for TV/Cable and things like that.<p>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.<p>There are a range of other things I do. But it might get a little too long for a HN post.
Food:<p>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.<p>Phone plan:<p>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.<p>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.
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 :)
I save money the old school way - envelope/budget system.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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).<p>Historically we have tracked expenses with a web app that I wrote however recently have switched to Pennies on iOS.<p>For cash back we use Quidco, to reduce monthly costs we look at moeysavingexpert (Martin Lewis's old site).<p>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.<p>Seems to work for us.
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:<p>- 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)<p>- if possible, drive by bike instead of the car or public transport<p>- i changed my petroleum gas and power provider and save about ~100€/y<p>- 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.<p>- 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 ;)<p>- 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?)
There are a bunch of apps that help you <i>spend money more efficiently</i> - but I always feel they're in the lower % of effective saving, and the real answer is 'choose not to buy that thing'.<p>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).
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!<p>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?"<p>I have some habitual spends like that which are much easier to cut down on if I think I frame it that way.
There's <a href="https://digit.co" rel="nofollow">https://digit.co</a> :<p><i>Every few days, Digit checks your spending habits and removes a few dollars from your checking account if you can afford it</i>.
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?
Since nobody else said it.<p>STAY SINGLE!!!<p>If it flies, floats or f<i></i>ks it's cheaper to rent than to buy.<p>If you can't stay single at least avoid kids...<p>I know that won't be a popular opinion but the numbers don't lie.
I live in a city where I don't need a car.<p>I brew my own beer (fortunately I enjoy this activity, and I live in a place with very high alcohol taxes).<p>I eat little meat.
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 <i>need</i> 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.".
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.
Essential life habits: reduce, reuse. Do I need to buy a new thing? Do I have <i>space</i> 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?<p>Beyond that, review your regular expenses. Anything daily or monthly. Is that subscription still good value? Mortgage interest rate and payment schedule optimal?<p>About once a year or two I'll pile my downloaded bank transactions into a spreadsheet and look at the biggest categories.<p>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.
Here is a chrome extension - Honey - that deals with coupons.<p><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpnenekpadlanbbkooimhnj?hl=en-US" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpn...</a>
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.<p>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.<p>It doesn't lend its self to an app, but it has served me well over the years.
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 ;)<p>Invest on health - buy an exercise bike, bench/squat rack instead of gym. Saves a lot of time and money.<p>Property investment - dont know need to learn.
not spending. :P<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. :)
I also created a Chrome Extension that searches for the best discounted electronic gift card on Raise.com to help people save money.<p><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/raisecom-extension/kknoembcnnnhefehcmegppchcmggaafo" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/raisecom-extension...</a>
Saving money is primarily a mindset. Tools might help but in my opinion they are absolutely not needed.<p>Reading <a href="http://earlyretirementextreme.com/manifesto.html" rel="nofollow">http://earlyretirementextreme.com/manifesto.html</a> helped me to get the "saving money mindset" into my bones more than any other resource.
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).<p>The amazon prices seem to fluctuate enough to make this worthwhile.
I am using this spreadsheet <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/2tymvf/poormans_budgeting_spreadsheet/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/2tymvf/poo...</a> for budgeting
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.<p>Keen to hear anyone's thoughts...<p>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.<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/mymoneyzen/videos/688678827952669/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/mymoneyzen/videos/688678827952669/</a>
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.<p>These are;<p>Daily spending, risky investments, safe investments, lifestyle savings (e.g. holidays or other luxury spends) and bills/fixed expenses.<p>Often I will dip into lifestyle savings if I overrun my daily spending.<p>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.
In the past I quit my job and spent 2 years driving from Alaska to Argentina on my savings.<p>Now I've done it again and will spend 2 years driving around Africa.<p>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.<p>I wrote an eBook on the topic - called "Work Less to Live Your Dreams" which describes exactly how I'm able to do it.<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4AL8BE" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4AL8BE</a>
How about modifying the displayed price to reflex the cost of the item after cc interest.<p>If person is going to put something on a cc, display the price after 6 months of interest has been applied.
Don't use credit cards. I also recommend YNAB: <a href="https://www.youneedabudget.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.youneedabudget.com</a>
<p><pre><code> * 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
</code></pre>
And of course, investing. I usually force myself to invest whatever money I get in stocks or forex trading.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I like <a href="https://paribus.co/" rel="nofollow">https://paribus.co/</a>
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
Create a chrome extension that somehow keeps people working as if you're busy making money, you're generally not spending it.<p>Something that disables access to HN would probably be enough.
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.
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.
from this book the richest man in babylon, I like the simplicity of just putting aside 10 percent to start.<p>It build up over time, and it is dead simple to implement.
Ad Block Plus, no ads, no desire to purchase the products I didn't see.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.
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.<p>Live.. but don't waste.