Time is money. It’s not like you have never heard that before. After considering cutting back my time spent working, I asked myself, “If I had more time on my hands, what additional things would I do at home to cut costs?” These are the ways I would save money if I was home more:
- Garden, Freeze Food, Can Food
Potential Savings: $10 per week
Gardening obviously saves on produce at the grocery store through the summer, but it also saves on frozen and canned food in the winter months. Tending to a garden and harvesting the foods takes quite a bit of time through the summer, but in the end will add up to cost savings and will add satisfaction to eating something you grew yourself. This will also lead to healthier meals being made, and therefore feeling healthier in the end.
- Make your own soap, cleaning solutions, laundry detergent, candles, crafts, etc.
Potential Savings: $10 per week
Making soaps and cleaning solutions is simple to do, but it just takes time. With additional time, making these yourself saves on the cost at the store on soaps and detergents. These things are made from cheap ingredient your can easily find, and are better to use to clean anyways. In addition, this can give you the opportunity to sell these items at markup prices.
- Fix appliances yourself, house maintenance, car maintenance
Potential Savings: $30 per month
After spending majority of your day outside the home, coming home to additional work is not always the greatest feeling, but doing the maintenance of your assets yourself has huge cost savings. After some searching on the internet, many things can be fixed from home without hiring an expert. This can save money on small repairs, without too much extra effort. Use caution, though, some projects could be out of your league if you are inexperienced and could be even more damaging, so you should contact a more experienced person when problems are outside of your skill set.
- Not paying for sports and workouts
Potential Savings: $50 per month
Getting exercise is important. Staying motivated is difficult when you do not have the time to spend exercising or doing activities. With a small amount of extra time, you can plan you workouts and activities when the weather is nice outside, or with a partner whose schedule maybe didn’t match yours. Cutting the expense of a gym membership, golf course membership, or activities without losing the benefits of exercise would be easier with additional time each week.
- Don’t drive as much
Potential Savings: $30 per week
With less days at a job and less places to go (such as the gym or grocery store), driving needs will decrease. This will cut down on gas costs and reduce mileage on a car, cutting costs even more. In addition, the opportunity to walk or ride a bike will be reasonable with more time on your hands.
- Living in a cheaper home in a cheaper area
Potential Savings: Unlimited
With fewer obligations to go to a job, location of living can be flexible. Living in the country is much cheaper than in a town. Living in a smaller town will be much cheaper than a city. Cost of living is dependent on the area you live in and the size of the home you own, and it will be possible to cut costs with additional flexibility.
- Do your own investing and financial tasks
Potential Savings: $20 per month
When time is limited, it is easy to accept to pay a person to do your investing for you. So why pay someone to do something that you can do yourself, and you also give yourself the chance to even learn a thing or two along the way. With additional time, you can read about investing and gain the experience to do it yourself, without paying a third party to help you out.
- Cutting coupons and shopping during sales
Potential Savings: $10 per week
When you work fifty hours a week, you go shopping when you have time and clip coupons randomly when the time is available. If there were more time available, these two things could become a part of your routine for shopping to save the optimum amount of money on things you must buy at the store.
