hey guys it's jen and i have been doing a lot of thinking this season how the year has been super
unpredictable and there are so many tempting sales and things going on right now so i know
i have been trying to save money where i can and i know you guys probably are too you want to spend
your money in a helpful way for this season so i thought it'd be nice to put together a little
list of just practical tips to help you save money during this season if you guys are also interested
in saving a little bit of money i am going to be talking about ibotta my sponsor for this
video a little bit later on so you guys can look forward to that but for now let's go ahead and hop
into the money saving tips my first tip is to buy things when you need it versus when you want it i
have to say i don't necessarily have the greatest track record of keeping up to this and this is why
it's probably my number one tip because i'm constantly being exposed to new products
especially when it comes to like beauty and especially when it comes to skin care
which is kind of ironic because you know it takes a long time to see what skincare works or not
my eyes it's just one of those things where you see something delicious
and you always feel hungry that's how i am with skin care but i have to always tell myself
look for something when you're running out of that product instead of just always having your
eyes open and browsing for the products that you don't necessarily need yet so that helps keep
my life a little less cluttered and my wallet a little less skinny the number two tip applies to
certain stores especially the grocery store it's so helpful to have a list before you buy something
and stick to the list because when you're thinking about a list you're really thinking about what
you need and what is going to fill a hole in your life right now but a lot of the times what happens
is as we're looking around and browsing for things in the cookie section maybe you come across things
that you weren't intending to buy and then you end up spending a lot more than you intended and a lot
of times it's for things that you don't actually need i find that when i have a list and i'm really
adamant about sticking to the list not only does my whole shopping trip end up much much quicker
which is extra important during this time i save money without really thinking about it in fact
i think making a list beforehand actually helps a lot of my decision fatigue which is something
that i definitely have such a hard time like oh there's like five different kinds of macaroni
which macaroni should i buy but having that list and being like okay i want this thing it just
helps me make those decisions in a lot smarter way number three is a term that i learned from
watching this show called the home edit i don't know if you guys follow them but they do like
organizational videos yes i'm that person that will watch like decluttering things just to
feel at peace in my life if you guys are like that let me know in the comments
one thing that they talk a lot about is back stock now backstock is a term that i had never
heard before learning it from them but it's basically your extras in your house so say that
you went to the store and you bought a whole bunch of paper towels well you're only using one roll of
paper towels at a time so the rest of that that's like prepared for when you need it next is called
back stock i do think back stock is really helpful especially if you have kids or big family and it
doesn't make sense to run to the store all the time but i do think it's important to just make
sure you're not holding on to too many things that will take you a really really long time to
get through like skincare like i mentioned before i was realizing that i had way too much back stock
of certain moisturizers and toners and what have you that would take me like a year to get through
and then my shelves just ended up being super cluttered so not that this is a decluttering
video but i do think that it has to do with money as well because what i find is i will spend money
to buy things that i like not realizing i already had two of them in my house and so i didn't need
to spend that money so be aware of backstock benny it's the most guilty backstop you know
how many jars of peanut butter we have right now i feel like we have to pick we have four
family sized peanut butter jars peanut butter man number four is one of those really obvious things
eat out less and cook at home more and not just cooking at home more but meal prepping the seasons
that i do do more of the meal prepping and cooking at home and by me i mean um ben is the cook in our
family uh i ca i can help him out but he's the one with the actual skills there but when we cook at
home together it really does end up saving money in the long run and honestly i feel like not only
is it less money it's healthier that's another goal that i want to get back into once we have
our kitchen again our kitchen is still being renovated but it's a goal that i have for the
future that i'm really really excited about number five i feel like every dad out there will be so
thrilled i mentioned this one and that is to just generally be conscientious of your home energy use
i feel like everybody's dad is like hey make sure you turn the lights off make sure you turn the
water off like just in general the utilities in our house because they're always running sometimes
we don't think about how we're excessively using things when we don't need to be for instance
during the daytime you can just open up your drapes and have a lot of sunlight versus having
the lights on for a computer situation one thing that ben actually told me about he's my husband
so he's the dad in our family for computers if you're not actively sitting at your computer
a lot of times i would just put it in sleep mode but a much more energy efficient way is
to completely shut the computer off if i know i'm not going to be on it for a few hours versus just
leaving it on screen saver mode or on sleep mode it really does make a difference in your energy
use i also wanted to say one of the huge things that we decided to do in this house but you can
really do in any house is we switched almost every single light that we use to led bulbs instead
of incandescent and that's because incandescent bulbs not only do they die really quickly but they
use way more energy like our christmas tree we intentionally bought a christmas tree that had led
lights versus incandescent lights because it is something that we enjoy having run all day but it
uses a lot less energy and thus saving money okay so the next one is something that has to do with
the clothing that we're wearing and the things that we're seeing i really love fashion and i
get inspired by seeing like fashion bloggers or new things out there but one thing that i
really found made a huge difference in this last year was so much of our stuff was packed away i
literally wasn't exposed to it i wasn't seeing it and having these boxes be opened up again i'm like
wow it's like i have a brand new wardrobe one thing that can really help for anybody really
is to rotate your wardrobe because you tend to be inspired and wear what you see in front of you but
then sometimes you'll get bored of it right you could consider like rotating what is on the closet
areas that you see more and some of your clothes will feel fresh again versus having to constantly
buy new things but the same thing can be applied to other things in your life for instance kids
toys i know a lot of people myself included struggle with just the chaos of having all of
the toys everywhere but one thing that's made our kids really play with their toys more is to have
separate bins of different kinds of toys and just not having them all out at the same time so we'll
rotate bins of toys so that they're more likely to be inspired and excited about the toys that they
see and it also prevents us from just feeling like we need to buy new toys and then never getting rid
of anything else because if they really like it and play with it but just for periods of time
i think that's actually really normal behavior for kids and for adults my next tip is to be cautious
of sales and i know that is really hard in this season and i'm certainly someone that was always
raised on basically always shopping on clearance to get the best bang for your buck but at the same
time especially during these seasons where sales are just rampant it's better to have an idea of
what you want before you go into it and then when that sale happens it's already that thing that you
want versus feeling compelled to buy something because it went on sale that isn't quite exactly
what you needed especially in today's online shopping culture it's so easy for there to almost
always be a sale going on you don't always have to shop just because there is a major sale going on
even sales that i always partake in every year there are some that i'm like okay well this year
i'm just deciding i'm not even gonna look and then at the end of it i don't feel any sort of
like buyer's remorse or feeling of regret that i missed out because i didn't look at what i missed
in the first place so just be choosy about which sales you want to take part of before the sale
happens and then that makes it a lot easier of a decision making process okay so this next tip is
something that i've been doing for the last couple of years and i think it really curbs my shopping
craving that i'll get into sometimes and that is to do online window shopping and the way that i do
that is i'll act like i'm shopping i'll add things to my cart and then at the end of it i'll just let
it sit in the cart for a week and then at the end of that week if i have been thinking about it and
i really want it i get a little bit of that time where i can process things and really know in my
heart and in my gut if it's really something that i want a lot of times after i wait a week
it gives me enough time to be able to really see if it's something that still sparks joy or
if it was something that was just something i wanted because of the excitement of the moment
and you know sometimes when i'm on the fence enough that i feel compelled to ask somebody about
a second opinion on something that's a little bit of a red flag for me on if i didn't really love
it enough in the first place because if i was super in love with it and i knew in my gut that
it just sparks so much joy thank you marie kondo i would have just bought it and if it takes another
week or another opinion i probably didn't need it and i probably didn't want it as much as i thought
my next point is preventative maintenance i know it's a little bit more generic than the
other points that we talked about before but it can actually save you from having a really big
dip in your financial situation when you didn't expect it these things might be dental care or
cleaning out drainage pipes in a new house car care a lot of these things they can maybe slip
our mind or it's just easy to not think about it until it's a problem but what i would say is make
a list of those things and then plug those things into a calendar to just check on it regularly that
can save you a lot of time and heartache in the long run you don't have to think about it that
much if it's already set in your calendar to check it every month or week or year but that
just in general can help us stay on top of things without having to use too much brain power over it
so point number 10 might apply to quite a lot of you who are sitting at home and thinking about oh
should i upgrade my refrigerator there are a lot of things that i need to fix and get better
things in our house and now is the perfect time i would highly recommend checking your local water
and electricity companies and seeing if they're running any rebates on things that you're already
intending to upgrade in your house because there are a lot of things i didn't know would actually
give you a rebate like some ceiling fans have rebates and toilets and then there are the obvious
things like refrigerators dishwashers washing machines things like that it's always worth
looking because it can give you a little something that you didn't know you would get so speaking
of getting a little bit of something back i am already doing holiday shopping so one thing that
i've been making sure i do all the time as much as possible is using the ibotta app and browser
extension when i'm shopping since i can get cash back on things that i was already going to buy i
also really love that there's no point system or codes that i have to remember for anything
and it's also completely free and i actually get real cash back i've just been using it as
much as i can especially for my holiday shopping buying presents for the kids or for the family
and also doing grocery pickup and delivery that's kind of a game changer the browser extension has
just also been super handy for me it's just kind of a one-stop shop if you guys want to check out
ivata i will leave a link in the infobox down below thank you guys so much for watching i
really hope you enjoyed these tips on how to save money and if you were also raised to be
very money saving like me hit that like button so that i know we're kindred spirits and feel free
to subscribe if you want to see more of my videos i love you guys and i'll see you in the next one
bye