How to Save $20 a Week.
An Extra $20 a Week?
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Yesterday I laid out a plan to begin stockpiling for the pandemic with just $20 a week. But hey, we are experiencing record unemployment and job losses this year. So for many families, even $20 might be tough. In order to come up with $20 a week, you either have to bring it in, or not spend it out.
So let’s go over a combination of both. There’s also the possibility that you could come across a 20 dollar bill just laying on the ground, but that’s pretty unlikely. And there isn’t really anything you can do to increase the odds of that happening. Since my mantra is “focus on what you can control” that’s what we’re going to do.
How to Save $20 From Your Budget
Cutting Back on Expenses: Cutting back is exactly what it sounds like. You cut back on something in your life and save up the money you would have spent on it. This is something that is easier than most people think. In fact, I have a list of 100 ways to trim money from your household budget. Most of them are simple to implement and you’ll be surprised how they add up.
Review your subscriptions: Almost everything these days is subscription-based. The reason? Because those companies know that you’ll “get it and forget it.” At the time, $5 or $6 isn’t much. But when you have half a dozen or so, that adds up! Cutting out Netflix will save you nearly $4 a week. Remember this is only a temporary measure while you’re saving up some money. If you came here from the stocking up the pantry article then you’re only looking at 10 weeks.
Carpool: Or see if working from home a few days a week is an option. Because of the pandemic, many more companies are friendly to the idea and you could save on gas and dry cleaning.
Learn how to Eat Healthy for Cheap: Shop the weekly deals and use coupons. When you buy food that is on sale from its normal price save the difference. This same idea applies to coupons. However much money you saved with that coupon, put it in your savings.
How to Add $20 to your Household Each Week
Another way of coming up with $20 every week is by making $20 or more each week.
Below are just a few ideas that you can combine to make it happen. These are all little things that just about anyone could do. Though, some of them do require you to have a car or a bike, and a smartphone.
You may also need to have a Paypal account set up and connected to your bank account.
- Change Jar: Have a Change Jar and always bend over for change, even if it’s just a penny.
- Side Hustles: Do UberEats or DoorDash once a week.
- Sell Something You Don’t Want on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist.
- Use Swagbucks and Rakuten.
- Offer Services on Fiverr.
- Take Surveys on Survey Junkie, LifePoints, and other survey websites.
- Use GigWalk to do small, local gigs.
- Sell your mobile phone images on AGORA.
- The subreddit r/beermoney is a great place to find information on how to find small online jobs that anyone can do.
This is really just scratching the surface of the types of apps and websites where you can make small amounts of money that add up. If you do a few of these for just an hour a day it will all add up very quickly.
Of course, if you’re reading this from outside the United States you won’t be able to use all of these ideas, but there are most likely similar sites and apps in your country. Do a quick search for your country and the words “Paid surveys” to get an idea of where you can start. I also recommend you go to the subreddit for your country and ask them what apps and websites they know about.