Proactive planning for your week or even for your forthcoming month can save you significant money and reduce your stress. Life tends to be filled with unpredictability. Sometimes, you might feel swamped with too many responsibilities such as work, family, and managing other life roles.
Often, we find ourselves making unplanned decisions or setting agendas on the spot, which increases pressure and expenses. Fortunately, there are plenty of strategies you can use to arrange in advance and reduce the stressful, dynamic nature of everyday life. By employing a few simple life-simplifying strategies, you’ll have more free time and save money.
Here are six strategies to achieve this:
1. MEAL PLANNING
Planning your meals in advance is a critical way of saving time and money. Allocate some time at the start of each week, perhaps on Sunday, to decide what you’ll eat and prepare for each meal.
This strategy provides many advantages such as developing a shopping list for the week, and designing meals around similar ingredients to minimize spending. Moreover, it eliminates the daily pressure of deciding what to eat and reduces your monthly grocery expenses.
In addition to this, consider using a meal delivery service, such as Blue Apron. Register here to save $30 off your first order!
2. PREPARE AND FREEZE MEALS
Saving on food purchases can be a real challenge, mainly when specific items deteriorate quickly. You can save time on weekdays by preparing meals ahead of schedule and freezing them. Cook large quantities of meals like soups, lasagnas, casseroles, and store them in portions in the freezer.
This approach ensures that you fully utilize your grocery purchases without wasting any, while maintaining a consistent supply of meals. This practice will cut your spendings on groceries and on dining out in the long term.
3. STOCK NON-PERISHABLES & CANNED GOODS
One of the most challenging aspects of cooking is using all of your fresh produce and perishable items before they turn bad. It’s frustrating to realize you’ve spent money on something that ended up spoiling. To prevent such wastage, consider cooking with more non-perishable or canned goods.
Items such as rice and quinoa or canned goods like tomatoes, corn, and beans, tend to last for prolonged periods. Buy these items in bulk when they’re on sale; this will also allow you to swap out some fresh produce and keep some basics readily available, saving you time, money, and stress.
4. USE COUPONS OR APPS
Savings on groceries require planning and thought. Impulse purchases often lead to increased expenditures. One practical way to save on groceries and toiletries is to use coupons or coupon apps.
Browse through the newspaper, sign up for coupons, or download savings apps like Grocery iQ, Checkout51, ShopKick, or Yowza. These apps help you find deals and discounts on items you regularly buy, which, though may seem small, accumulate to significant amounts over time.
5. AUTOMATE YOUR THERMOSTAT
Heating and air conditioning make up a significant portion of utility bills. By programming your thermostat, you can make sure it doesn’t chew through too much of your budget. If your thermostat doesn’t already have this feature, consider purchasing a programmable model to adjust the temperatures based on your presence at home.
Strive to keep your home warmer or cooler during your absence and set the thermostat to kick in during the hours you’re home. It’s unnecessary to operate your heating or air conditioning at full capacity when you’re not there; a better approach is to pre-set it for the times you are home to save money.
6. RUN YOUR ERRANDS IN ONE GO
Do you ever have weeks where it feels like you’re always on the go? You run a few errands one day, then a few more the next and so on. While this isn’t necessarily harmful, it could prove quite costly.
If your task-list for the week includes multiple errands, plan them at the week’s start. Draft a list of all the errands you need to run, and then devise a plan to complete them all in one go.
Try to map out the journey encompassing each errand to optimize route efficiency. By allocating adequate time to plan your errands in a single day, you’ll save valuable time and mitigate fuel expenses.
THE FINAL WORD
Planning ahead for the week certainly takes additional time. However, making last-minute meal decisions, shopping without a shopping list, or running errands randomly, generally amounts to extra costs and creates disorder in life.
A robust plan, such as a budget, helps eliminate this uncertainty. Following some simple preparation tips for daily life will allow you to have more time and money.
What are some affordable meals you’ve discovered that you can prepare ahead of time? What strategies do you have for further savings on everyday expenses?
