7 Ways to Save More Money This Week #260

sounds like fake news. It sounds like some ripped off article on some news site that doesn't have legitimate news articles. But but this is legito. We are going to actually talk about seven different ways that individuals can save more money this week. Yeah. And I think Matt and I we always try to straddle the kind of personal finance advice.

Sometimes it takes the form of more long term or more of a mental approach, and then sometimes you just need like news you can use like right now, right Yeah, and I think this this episode today is something that's basically news you can use right now, and and it's seven ways to save more money this week if you tackle one of these things each day for the next week, you will save money and it will help your bottom line immediately. And that was kind of the goal with

this episode. That's what we want to do is give you specific ideas that will affect you almost immediately, like today or tomorrow. So yeah, if you pay attention to this episode, you'll have more money in your bank account by next Tuesday. Yeah. Man, you know one of the things that that we're not going to talk about this episode that I wanted to mentioned, uh, is you can save money by shopping at Aldi, our local. That's all you ever talked about. I love all the dude. Our

local Aldi is getting renovated. Have you been there recently? No, I haven't been there a couple of weeks there, What is wrong with you renovating? Okay? Yeah, So I think a lot of the all these that have been around for a while are a little run down, little chevy. Yeah, because I will say I've been to a lot of all these all across the country, whether it's visiting family in the Midwest, or we'll go to an Aldia and when we go to the beach, your relatives are like Matt,

you want to go to the local museum. It's the highlight of your visit. Can you swing by instead? Um? But I will say our Aldi is by far the most run down Aldi that I've ever been in. Every single Aldi that we've ever been to, UH is always either just bigger or nicer, And so I guess that's what they're doing. They're kind of stepping it up a little bit, making a little bit nicer of a shopping experience perhaps, But honestly, I don't really care all that much. Man.

It's all about the money, you know, It's all about the dollar, and so as long as they keep those prices where they are, I'm happy. But it is cool to to see folks who might be turned off by, you know, maybe a more rundown store that our location, that it might be a little more inviting to those folks. Well. I think AUDI is starting to see too, a little more competition in the space, especially in the lower cost

grocery space. Legal is a grocery chain from your I D L. Right, That's how I spell it, and they have incredibly low prices as well. But the stores they're building are much nicer than all the I think all all these starting to feel the pressure, like Okay, cool, if we're going to compete in the space we we owned it. For a while, we were alone, and we were a complete departure from what the bigger grocery store

chains were doing. But now there's a little more competition in that space, and so yeah, they need a liven things up and making a better experience for people to still want to come there. Yeah, for a while they said we don't need to have a craft beer section and a nice rue ale, but now we're gonna have a whole I'll dedicated to meats. Listen, all the I need the fancy meats and cheese is okay? They they're spicy.

Salami is excellent. Yeah, it is good. That's uh. That's what we chopped up at the beach right for the kids. So yeah, that's so good. Also, I'll still need it for lunch sometimes too. All right, Matt, let's mention the beer that we're having on the show today. This one's called Dad Jokes by Morgan Territory Brewing, and this one was sent to us from listener Brent out in California. So big thanks to to Brent for sending this beer

our way. Looking forward to giving our thoughts on this beer at the end of the episode, and of course made it's perfectly appropriate that you and I are each drinking one of these beers. You've got kids, I've got kids, uh so we should be drinking dad jokes. I do make stupid jokes from time to time as well, And actually I feel like the older I get, the worst my jokes get. So I struggle with the dad joke myself.

By worst, you mean like the better they get, like the more people like Grimace when when I tell a joke. I think that's where I'm at this point. Man. I think with a little bit effort, you can kind of change that person and we can kind of turn things around. Okay, all right, I'll see what I Let's do it. Yep, all right, Let's get onto the subject at hand. Matt

seven ways to save more money this week. We're getting super practical today, and if anybody out there who's listening is uh it, wants to increase the cash that they have on hand immediately, then this is the show for you.

Some of the things will discuss on this episode will pay dividends even past just this week, but they're guaranteed to save you money in the very very near term, and if you tackle one of these tasks per day in the coming week, you'll save a decent chunk of change and you can use that money to jump start an the fund, or you know, just start building a vacation fund for or maybe you've been dying to save up for an e bike and doing these things will

give you the perfect motivation to get that cash quickly. Or you can even use it to to start that nest egg for a major purchase that's looming down the road, like a house. Rome wasn't built in a day, but you've got to start somewhere right and getting the ball rolling. By taking a money saving action each day for a full week, I think that can be empowering to It gets those money muscles working. Yeah, you know, typically the more impactful financial moves that you can make, they're going

to be those bigger lists. Uh. There are other things that you can do to save money, but you can't necessarily get them done in a week, right. You know, you could refire your mortgage, you could start up that side business that you've been wanting to create, but you won't be able to get either of those done within the next seven days and the financial impact often will will typically play out over a longer period of time

as well. You know, you might be putting in that time and money now, but you may not actually realize any net savings for months or even years to come. And so this episode is focused on what you can do immediately to improve your financial situation. And so there are two sides to the equation. If you're you're trying to save more money right now, you can either earn more or b you can spend less. And you know, in real life it's likely not an either or decision.

You're probably gonna look to ways that you can do both, where you can do both earn more and spend less. And so that's what we're gonna talk about today, and we're gonna kick things off with spending less money. Joel. My guess is the first thing you're gonna mention is shopping at Aldie Well. I said at the beginning of the episode, that's not one of our pots. So I found a way to slide that in without making it eight things, eight ways to say it was eight. We've

only got seven days. We don't want to give you two things to doing one day, seven days a week, seven although there are other things if you've been listening for a long time or you're just an avid money nerd like there are other things too that could have fit on this list. But the first thing we would say if you want to save a good bit of money in a short amount of time is to shop your insurance coverage. And we've talked about this on the show before, but now is just an excellent time to

be shopping around. If you haven't shopped your insurance coverage within the last three or four years, there's a good chance you're paying too much. And insurance companies have been doing really well during the pandemic. They've experienced fewer claims, and much of that is due to the fact that

we're all just driving less. We're working from home. We haven't been on the roads in nearly the same amount that that we usually are, which means fewer accidents, which means fewer claims, which means the insurance company is reaping higher profits. So we would recommend to call a local independent agent who can shop with a bunch of different insurance companies at once for you, and or check out policy Genius. They've got a tool which does something similar,

will link to that in the show notes. But either way, you could start saving real money really quickly by shopping that insurance around. I think, Matt, that's one of those things that people are like fearful to do or they think it's gonna take forever. But we put it on this list purposely because it's not something that is going to be really all that heavy of a lift totally. Man. Yeah, and really, you know, you should be shopping your insurance

around every year or two. But the problem is, Man, most people will stay loyal to their current insurer, and they do it not because they love them, you know, or because of the amazing service that they provide. They mostly do it out of apathy. And so we want to encourage folks to not fall all into that ruts. Um And a quick tip, make sure that you're aware of the different types of coverage that you have, so no your current coverage, no your deductibles, and know your limits.

That way you can easily compare apples to apples. Again, we're trying to make this something that you can do very quickly and very easily, something that you can easily check off your to do list, and we're hoping by the end of the day, you could have maybe even better insurance while paying less for that insurance. That is the goal. Yeah, you don't necessarily have to give something up when it comes to customer service or when it

comes to coverage in order to save money. Oftentimes you can just score a much lower rate and maybe end up in a better spot coverage wise at the end of the day. Um So, yeah, all right, that's the first thing, Matt. Let's get to the rest. We've got six more ways to save money this week that we want to get to, including what you can do quickly to cut down on recurring expenses, and we'll get to

that right after this break. All right, So we're back for the break, and we already covered one way that you can cut some expenses in your life, and that's by shopping your insurance. And so let's talk through a few other ways to cut some expenses. And you already hinted to it before the break. Hunger strike, hunger strike and cutting expenses, recurring expenses. That's going to cut your

grocery bill, dude, groceries add up. Man, we eat food every single day, and well, we can't advocate for people to like go on hunger strikes. No, But seriously, one of the easiest ways to save money quickly is by reviewing your previous month's expenses. So if you use a service like wine app or mint, it's really easy to see all of your spending in one single place, and then once you've see where your money is going, look to the different services that you can downgrade or even

cut completely. Now it's time to streamline and cut these expenses. So let's talk about some of the common culprits where we are spending too much money every month. And and the thing is, like, the reason this is so important to is because even though it doesn't seem like that these are expenses that are that big, but you take that number and you multiply by twelve, and it really

adds up. You know, like you're talking about hunger strike kind of joking around there, obviously, but groceries that is you know, I'm gonna take it back to Aldi of course, like are you saving that much money per item that you purchased their No, but every single one of those items adds up. And in the same way these recurring expenses, they add up every month, and so by the end of the year, you're making a substantial difference in the

amount of money that you are actually able to save. Yeah, so let's talk about a few bills that people should really look at if they're looking to cut a recurring expense, which is one of the seven ways we would say they can easily save more money this week, your cell phone bill is a big one. Slashing a big recurring monthly bill like that, it can save you money now and well into the future. Some of the best inexpensive plans are offered currently by Mint Mobile, Visible and boost Mobile.

And there are other players out there too who, depending on your usage patterns, could potentially save you even more money. But I feel like those three are definitely worth looking at. It's important to note that low cost doesn't mean inferior service, right. These companies have actually just changed the business model while still using the towers from the major cell phone companies.

So if you haven't changed cellphone providers or plans in the past few years, it's almost impossible not to save money potentially thirty forty eight dollars a month depending on your current plan. And and some of these people are also offering unlimited everything at a really low price. I mean meant they just launched their plan thirty bucks a month for unlimited everything. You don't even have to worry about your daddy usage. Although if you out for one

of their limited data plans, you could save even more. Yeah, you can even cut that thirty dollars and a half. Like, we're talking fifteen bucks a month for cell phone service, which is much much cheaper than what a lot of folks are paying. Uh. And a lot of the savings too,

comes from paying for all of that coverage upfront. And because we know it can be a little confusing when it comes to making a switch of cell phone providers, we wrote a little guide on our website to help you think through that, to help you consider which carriers might make the most sense for how you use your cell phone and maybe the questions you need to ask yourself before you do end up making a switch. And you'll be able to find that in our show notes

for this episode upon our website too. Yeah, and Jill, another recurring expense that we can remove from our lives. Let's talk a little bit about streaming services. Man, most of our listeners they cut the cord long ago and they've moved to streaming, and that's great. But as streaming services proliferate, man it has become hard to choose which

ones to keep, which ones to cut. And so if you've accumulated maybe way too many of these monthly streaming payments, uh ditched to one or two that you watch the least, you can always sign back up for it later on. Chances are you can probably signed back up for it at an even discounted price, because a lot of times they have special offers or maybe even another approach just cut them all, cut them all and then start by adding back the ones that you know have the shows

that you are currently really into. I feel like a lot of times we kind of keep some of these streaming services around for like whenever that next season does come out, but like you know, chances are it might be like six to nine months, and that's a long time of paying for a service that you're not taking advantage of. Yeah, and maybe there's one or two that you find yourself consistently going to, and then the other

ones you occasionally dabble in them. Well, find that one show that you love, watch that show and then ditch it for a little while. There you go, and then yeah, go back to it. If the next season comes out, or if another show that you really want to check out pops up. But for the most part, yeah, I think almost all of us could stand to trim the amount of streaming services we subscribe to. I think for most people it hasn't gotten as bad as cable bills

used to be, but it's still a thing. Man, We're getting close. That we're getting close to that because there are so many choices and so many new streaming services launching that want five, ten, fifteen bucks of your money. Makes me think about quimby Matt. Have you read about that that it's it's like the short shows or whatever. Yeah, I've heard that it's failed. Yeah, I think it's failed, really really very great. I've kind of wondered, like, well,

I mean, We're the show is actually any good? I guess not because it's failed spectacularly. But it's one of those things where, I mean, there's a new one launching. It feels like all the time NBC finally launched. There's I believe it's called Peacock, but there's so many choices that Fresh Prince of bel Air is gonna gonna do a reboot relaunched on Peacock there you go, Will Smith. I mean that that truly might be worth five bucks

a month. It's a get throwback right there. Yeah, right, But it's easy to let that inertia kind of overtake you, and you sign up for one, you keep paying, and then that's part two. Matt. I think of what you mentioned at the beginning, of actually looking at your previous month's expenses, having it in writing so you can kind of see right in front of your eyes. Oh wow, I didn't realize it. I am subscribed to six streaming services and I don't need those, so yeah, whatever you

can do to cut that down is always helpful. One other thought in recurring expenses right now is to cut a gym membership. My wife, she loves the y M c A, but she hasn't set foot through the doors of our local wide gym in six months now. And I know that's been the case for a lot of others as the pandemic has made it essentially impossible to

go to your gym. And Matt, she's been working out at home and she's dragged me into working out with her, and I'd love to see that it's not really working here. I am uh impressive so she's doing something. I'm not afraid to admit this. It's called bikini body mommy. And so I'm working out with you're doing bikini body Daddy. It's still be called bikini body mommy. And I'm working out with a lot of other postpartum women. But it's you know what, it's all it. I'm having fun and

it's way cheaper than gym membership. I feel like I maybe shouldn't have said that now at this point, but it's out there, so everyone knows I'm doing bikini body mommy. I think folks are just gonna hold you to a higher standard now next time they see you with your

shirt exactly where those apps very true. I don't know, I don't know if that's ever gonna happen, but yeah, I think Emily will probably be back in the y at some point one day, But for now, it's one of those recurring expenses that we can get out of our lives. And I think other people out there should think about whether or not that's a smart move for

them too. Does it make sense for for them to keep paying a gym membership if they can't go and use it, or if they're using it less, or does it make sense to work out at home ride your bike more? There are all sorts of other ways that you can kind of stay healthy stay fit without a gym membership. Speaking of riding your bike more, you didn't mention that you guys also spent over two thousand dollars on a pelets on bike, right right that. Yeah, you actually got two of them, so you spent like over

four thousand dollars. Yeah, exactly. H No, I mean I don't want to hand on those like if that's your thinking of the beer we're drinking. Dad jokes, that was a dad joke. That dad joke, that's just that was just a lie at joke. But I mean those bikes are crazy expensive. However, man, You know that being said, if you are really into working out a home and this is something that allows you to do that, we're not just we're not the kind of people who hate

on that kind of thing. You know. If this is your craft beer equivalent, if you're really into the spin classes and you can't do that because of the pandemic, then for you, maybe buying some of that workout equipment for home is your splurge. And at the same time it could be frugal, because man, some of those Spin class monthly recurring memberships can make expensive incredibly expensive too, So you might actually make more sense to buy a bike. By the way, you don't even have to buy the

Peloton bike. I think you can buy another bike, but you can probably buy like the al D version and used to Peloton service. But yeah, I think it's one of those things where if you are subscribed to just a really expensive spin membership, maybe you can get a cheaper bike, do it at home, get a great workout still and pay less money, or even better, just buy a used regular bike and then goes zipping around your city. All right, man, So we just covered some of the

different ways you can cut some recurring expenses. Another one of the seven ways that you can save more money is to spend any money at all. Right, We're talking about taking a spending holiday. Even just one week of uh not spending money can save you a good amount of money, and it can also help you break some of those habits that you know that you might have fallen into. With even more of a shopping from home

and taking advantage of e commerce. I'm sure there are some bad habits that we've all kind of gotten into. But you know, like we're talking about spending less money, but obviously you need to make sure that you have enough healthy and balanced food in your house. But other than that, you know, like we're talking about not spending

any money. Sometimes it takes challenging yourself and really drawing a hard line to kind of break you out of your ways, and may even, depending on your current stock, you know, you might even be able to avoid the grocery store altogether. You know, clear out that pantry, empty those shelves in your refrigerator. A lot of us have so much stinking food that we either just kind of keep stocked or it's food too that just ends up sitting there, it goes bad, and then you just kind

of end up tossing it. I hate seeing perfectly good food except for the fact that there's mold on it and you know, you don't want to eat anymore. But I hate seeing food go into the trash can. And I think, if I only had more time, I could have eaten that. You know, that's the worst. I think it's a good challenge for us to eat what we have on hand, because there are some things that I know that I push some some leftovers to the back of the fridge until they go bad, and it's like, man,

was just more intentional. I could have eaten it. That's just your strategy, that's your approach because you don't like leftovers that fridgie. I don't mind left leftovers, but you're definitely all about leftovers. I know that. But yeah, man, I agree. Don't spend a dime for a week and you are going to see savings and if there's something you feel like you need, look to your local buy nothing group that empowers people to buy nothing but still

get the items they need by living generously. I saw someone the other day in my local buy nothing group ask if someone had Legos nearby for their kid, and and somebody replied, I don't have Legos, but I have this that would be a lot of fun for your

kid to play with. And it's that kind of thing too, where you can post and you can ask for things and you're buying nothing group and see if people have them, and people are often if you're in that group together, they want to see other people buy nothing and waste less two So it's just an awesome thing to be a part of. You might find some cool stuff in there and at the same time be able to avoid, uh, spend money that you didn't want to spend. I didn't know.

You're part of our local buy nothing group? Are you in the one? You know that's in our neighborhood? And then East Atlanta and the I am okay, I recently just joined. I'm never on Facebook though, so it just yeah, that's one of the things. But if I were on there more, I'm trying to see some great stuff. Yeah.

That is the problem is that these buy nothing groups are primarily based only on Facebook, and so you know, I tend to avoid Facebook because it kind of sucks me in, And that's one of the social media platforms you know, I tried to avoid, but it certainly might be worth diving into to participate in one of those groups. And and especially if you're looking for something that you're not necessarily looking to buy new alright, jel One other way that you can cut some expenses in order to

save the money. Let's talk about refinancing a car loan. Right, you can't get your home refinanced in a week, but you can't get a lower rate on your car loan in that amount of time. We're not fans of of car det in general. Like I'm willing to even say that I hate car loans and I hate when people have car loans. I hate the idea of financing something that's depreciating, you know. But if you do have some car det, we're all about you getting it paid off

more quickly. Uh. And with interest rates falling like a rock, refinancing that Carlon does something in the three to four percent range could save you a nice chunk of change in the coming months. And you know the thing is, with most wonders, you won't even pay a penny to rEFInd that vehicle loan, So start checking with local credit unions for rates to get the ball rolling. You could save money every single month and potentially get your car

paid off more quickly at the same time. No doubt so, Matt, I think those are some great ways to spend less in order to save more money this week. But let's talk about a few ways that people can quickly earn more money this week. We'll get to those as well as a couple of bonus ideas that we've got for people to to save even more. We'll get to those right after the break all right, man, we are back from the break and you just you were talking about

bonus you know, like bonus points. I feel like that's the epitome of a clickbait article, you know, like they'll say, here are ten ways to do X, but really there's only five ways, and four of them are like incredibly weak. Yeah, like four of them don't count, and there's one that's like what what does that even I don't even know

what that says? Uh. In our case that it's the it's the opposite, Like we do have seven solid ways to save more, but we have these two additional two or three additional ways to be able to save more money. But they didn't quite qualify as spending less, and they didn't quite qualify as earning more money as well. But that's what we're gonna talk about now, right on the other side of the equation. We're gonna talk about earning more. We've talked about spending less. Now let's talk about anymore.

Because you can only make so many cuts too expenses in your life. That's true, Matt. You can only go so far when it comes to cutting, and so hopefully some of the things we mentioned when it comes to cutting you're actually not losing anything when you're doing that. Um, you're streamlining things, you're saving more, and you're not cutting really good things out of your life. One of the big ways you can do that quickly is selling stuff

you no longer need. As you look around your home, ask yourself, would I rather have all this stuff I don't use anymore filling up my closets or what I'd rather have the cash on hand instead? And so if you have a bunch of lower cost items or some bigger, harder to ship appliances and furniture than Facebook marketplace, I think it's probably at this point it's the best place to turn. With the largest audience there who wants to

buy the stuff that you have to sell. You don't want to mess with shipping the bigger stuff, and then with the smaller items, it's easy to snap a single pick and post it with the price in no time. And that's just the best way to clear out a lot of stuff and make a reasonable return in a

really short amount of time. Yeah. I mean, I think so many of us have just so much clutter in our lives, you know, when it comes to just the items that we have, and I feel like a lot of times too, like the more stuff we have, the less money we have because we spend money on that stuff, and that equals stress in our lives. Were versus if you kind of flip the equation a little bit, but if you had less stuff and then you'd have more money, I think some of that stress would kind of melt

away a little bit. I think you're right. And so you mentioned some of the items that are probably good to sell on Facebook marketplace. But if you have fewer, maybe potentially more valuable items that you don't currently use, then you'll definitely want to look to eBay. The advantage here is obvious, right, Like you have a wider audience or just a larger market of folks who might be

willing to pay you top dollar for your stuff. You know, a couple of months ago, I asked if selling a gift that Kate had received, if that was frul or cheap. It was kind of this specialty item, but we were able to get way more money on eBay than if we would have just sold it on Facebook marketplace, because there aren't a lot of folks who would have been able to pay hundreds of dollars for that gift, which, by the way, I'll tell you we ended up selling

it for five dollars. I think we were hoping it was going to maybe cop out at around eight hundred. Didn't quite get there, but still six five that you didn't have before, that we didn't have that was just literally sitting in Kate's closet, and she thought, why do I even why am I keeping this around? I need to get rid of it. I mean, I mean most of us wish we could find six bucks, like from

one item. That's incredible. She was very happy for us to have taken that item, sold it and then had that money on hand, and she very politely reminded me make sure that money ends up in my account. By the way, well, I think to Matt, like, it can be stuff that you currently have in your house, but also it could be stuff that you've purchased, maybe even at a thrift store or a good will. Our friend Katie woke Stanley. She constantly is posting her good will finds.

She's been on the show before, by the way, but she doesn't keep most of these things herself. She turns around and sells them, mostly on eBay, and she actually recently made a nice chunk of change selling something she did have on hand, which was her son's old text books. But there are so many other things that she's on the lookout for when she's a good will that she can just immediately turn around and flip and sell on eBay. And so I guarantee that people have something of their

home that are worth real money. Maybe old baseball cards in the attic, hunt for the gold that currently exists under your roof that you don't really care about it anymore, make that money, or go out to your local thrift store and see what you can find. Yeah, and when it comes to selling on you Bay, man, it's definitely helpful if you have had an account, you know, for a number of years with some transactions next to your name when you're selling, and not just transactions to but

you know, actual positive feedback. But other than that, man, I think the best thing that you can do, uh, if you're looking to post something to sell is to make sure you've got good pictures. You want to make sure that those pictures are bright's, uh, that there's not a whole lot of other junk in the photo. When you're making that listing, I'll say as well, there's a difference between something that's well lit inside your house versus

something that's lit well with natural daylight. It's hard to explain, but just like the quality of daylight is so much better than just the light that you're going to get out of an LED or just a super orange tungsten bulb. But even if you can't get a really bright photo, it is so easy on your to take that picture with your phone, but then go and edit that photo

just by boosting that exposure. And I think for the vast majority of folks, if they just make their photos brighter to where you can see what is actually in the photo, make it bright and crisp, that would go a long way in making an item look more attractive. Yeah, no doubt. The photography makes a big difference, obviously unbiased, but it makes a big difference on whether people actually want the item and how much they're willing to bid

for it, for sure, all right, matt Uh. The next thing when it comes to earning more is consider launching an Airbnb. If you have an unused or under utilized room in your house, listing that room on Airbnb might be one of the easiest ways to start making some decent cash immediately, and we say immediately because Airbnb typically releases those funds twenty four hours after your guest checks in. So this is definitely a way for you to make more money this week have it in your checking account.

It's not something that takes weeks or months to build up to. If you have a room or a TP in the backyard, whatever it is, you can list it on Airbnb, get some guests of that book, and get money quickly by doing so. Yeah. Literally, man, if you are listening to this episode Wednesday morning, you could snap some pictures today, have your listing live by this afternoon, and someone could find your listing tomorrow morning, Thursday morning,

and bucket for this weekend. It sounds crazy, but you literally could have your first guests this weekend and you'd have money in your linked checking account by the end of the weekends. It's crazy. We talked in depth with Zeona McIntyre back in episode two fifty three, but it really is so easy to snap some picks and get that listing up. Not everyone has the space or is

necessarily comfortable with us. You know, Beau, you know, also has some good outside of the box ways to think about making some extra income on airbnb, like listening out your backyard for some campers. You know, there's all sorts of routes you can take, but you know, especially if you are interested in house hacking or if you have you know, larger real estate investing dreams, Airbnb is definitely

the fastest way to get started. Agreed. All I kind of miss it a little bit, you know, I guess doing the Airbn more we talk about Airbnb, I'm just like, oh man, it really was such a like it's it was so fun. But for us, you know, having that fourth kid and just kind of also trying to do everything involved with Airbnb, we just didn't have time for it. May yeah, no, I understand. But but for a lot of people out there who want to make money and they want to do it in the near term, I agree,

airbb it's like a perfect thing to consider. Another thing, Matt is working more. You and I were not fans of the eighty hour work week or even the sixty hour work week, but if you're looking to enhance your bank account quickly, take advantage of potential overtime if you have that ability where you work, and if that's not possible, you know side, Hustling online is a great way to generate cash quickly. It doesn't have to be something you

incorporate for the long term. But if you have a desire to save more money this week and can find a way to make money by working more, then we would suggest making it happen. I mean, I think it's one of those things where it doesn't have to be for always, like you don't have to be dedicated to

working sixty hour plus weeks all the time. But if it's a way to quickly ramp up the amount of money that you have to fully fund an emergency fund in a very short period of time, that we would say, yeah, work more for a little while to to get to that point. Yeah, man. And and something that everyone can do too is to make some money online this week by by taking just some of the different online surveys

for sites like swag Bucks and inbox Dollars. You're not gonna get rich right doing this, but it will give you some extra money quickly by performing these micro jobs. But some folks will make you know, hundreds of dollars a month doing these jobs on sites like m turk and filling out these online surveys. Joe, I know a front of yours, Michael. He wrote actually a great review of m turk after trying to make money for thirty days.

But when you do jobs at m turk, you really need to check out the turker Nation reddit forum for help finding the right gigs that pay the best for you. So we'll link to both of those in our show notes. If that sounds like something that interests you, yeah, I think it is nice to know that you can make

money from your house basically whenever you want to. But the thing is, you do need to pay attention to how to go about it well, because if you're doing it on a site like m turk, you could get a buck fifteen hour, or you also could get paid fifteen bucks an hour. It just depends on the jobs you choose, and and that Reddit forum can be just really really helpful in avoiding some of the lower paying

work that's out there. And it doesn't have to be just online either, Matt like, there are ways to make money, I think this week in your neighborhood. If you're up for walking dogs, mowing lawns, or cleaning houses, you can go old school prono, some flyers or posting your neighborhood Facebook page. Think up a skill that's outside of the box or a service that you can provide quickly to

your neighbors. For example, we're getting close to leaf season, and man, I'm totally willing to pay people to break leaves because I went through enough of that in childhood and I'm not doing it again. Okay, I feel like I've got some trauma, some scarring from all the leaves I had to rake when I was a kid, and I'm just waiting on that stiff breeze to just blow all the leaves from our front yard to our neighbors. That's what I bank on. The fingers crossed, like, yeah,

staring at them a night. Obviously, I'm not gonna go out there with the blower and do that. But you know, if the wind does it, you know, that's just nature my fault. Yeah. I really do think that there are so many ways where people have a gift or they have the ability to do something that their neighbors need, and just letting people know that you're out there and you're willing to provide that service, you could see like an overflowing of response and you don't have to be

highly skilled. I don't think in order to do that like it can be. It can be almost anything. You just have to make people aware of it. And I think these digital micro jobs or like some of these in person odd jobs are a great option as well if you know you have an hourly job where your hours have been cut and you're looking for something to kind of fill the gap before the economy turns around

a little bit more. And so Joel, I don't know folks recounting, but that is seven different ways that you can save more money this week, between spending less and earning more. But like we touched on earlier, we have a couple more bonus ways to get more money in your hands. Let's getting that bonus own bonus round commence. We would recommend for folks to look for unclaimed money man.

We talked about this a while back and we got a lot of positive feedback from some listeners who found money that belonged to them or even do a family member. So check out missing money dot com as well as unclaimed dot org to see if there's some money out there that is rightfully yours. Uh. You might be owed money from maybe a tax refund that you never received or or maybe even from unclaimed property in the state where you live. Searching at those sites is completely free

and it really takes almost no time. You're really just going to that site, typing in your name, searching the database. Just by doing that, it could get you some extra money very quickly and very easily as well. And that's man, that's that's some the best money out there. Yeah, you can search for a friend or family member to or help somebody else out, but search for yourself. Give it

a go. Uh, but you've look for friends missing money and then be like, hey, gonna let you know there's some missing money out there for you, but there's a finder's feed. I take a ten percent cut. Now, I'm always like willing to help a friend out and and

share that information with them. But it's one of those things too, where Yeah, most of the things we mentioned to involve some sort of work on your part, whether it's calling an insurance broker to shop that insurance coverage, or whether it is working more or starting that Airbnb right selling stuff. All those things require some work. But this one is like almost no work. It's literally typing

your name into a database. And I think that's why people were so excited the first time we talked about it. The many people who reached back out to via email, who's who found money that was there is They're like, oh, my gosh, I didn't know this was there. There's hundreds of dollars that I didn't realize existed or that I was owed. So it's an easy way to potentially make some more money this week. And it's kind of fun too. It's almost like a scratch off. It's like playing a lottery,

but without playing the lottery. It's like playing the lottery, except for Hey, that's that's my money, give it back right now. And yet one other bonus item we want to toss your way is thinking about your credit card rewards and specifically thinking about the sign up bonus that is offered with with some of these credit cards that

you can sign up for. It's important to note that Matt and I we love credit cards, but only if you pay your bill off in full at the end of every month, and if you can be a conscious spender where you're doing your normal spending, you're just putting it on a credit card that gets paid off at the end of every month instead of using cash or a debit card, but you can score a few hundred bucks just by opening a new credit card, and credit card sign up bonuses are an effective way to make

money quickly, right and you'll likely be able to add a credit card to your personal wallet that can earn you better awards at the same time, So that's a nice perk. You might be able to earn a few hundred bucks just by meeting a minimum spend limit on that new credit card, and at the same time have a credit card that's going to be better for you over the long run when it comes to the rewards you're going to get based on the way that you

normally spend well. And also when it comes to interest payments that you might have on a credit card balance, UH look to negotiate down your interest rate. Call your credit card company and see what they can do for you, and if they're not willing to budge, then see if you can sign up for a new zero percent balance transfer card and that would allow you to immediately put

that payment on hold. And we have articles up on the site about you know, the best zero percent transfer cards as well as the best credit cards based on how it is that you spend UH and We wanted to mention that too, because if you did sign up for a card through some of those links, it does help out the show. So we wanted to mention that we want to be transparent and thank you, especially if you find those resources helpful. All right, Matt, that's it

for the Bonus Zone. We give those two extra tips to try to help people, but hopefully this episode gives people some some practical takeaways in order to save more money this week. It's important to note that often the things that will make you the most money or save you the most money do take time. Right if you opt to downsize an apartment that you're living in, that I'll save you a lot of money, but you have

to wait until your lease is up. Usually, if you want to earn more money at your job, that usually requires a few conversations with your boss about performance and responsibilities that you're willing to take on. And we're all for pulling those types the levers to but sometimes it is nice to know that you can ramp up your savings in just a week and have some extra cash on hand, whether it's finally getting that emergency fund in order or starting to save for a family vacation that

you're wanting to take down the road. Hopefully the things we talked about on this episode can help you up your personal finance game and get to another level, uh in a quicker time frame than maybe you thought was possible by tackling Hopefully every single one of these are

most of these right if you're able to. And at the same time, we realize that we listed seven, there are so many more ways that you can make or save money quickly, and so let us know in the how do Money Facebook group or shoot us an email like,

what's your biggest way to save money incredibly quickly? In particular if you post it in the Facebook group, that those kind of things are gonna help other people broaden their horizons, inspire others to make a quick change in order to keep more of the money that they have earned, which is huge. We're all about that. So all right, Matt, let's get back to the beer that we had on the show this episode. This one was called Dad Jokes

by Morgan Territory Brewing. What was your take on this beer? Man? So as you said that, Man, I'm holding this can and I looked at the side and it says MT which stands for Morgan territory. It says empty your pint, which is like classic dumb dad joke character. I almost said it out loud. I was like, what is empty your point? I was like, oh my gosh, there's a literal dad joke on this can of beer. Uh. You

asked me how what I thought of it? This is a solid I p A. Man, it had kind of like to me, it had great fruity notes and kind of like some piny notes as well. It reminded me of like a West Coast I p A a a little bit. It's certainly not a New England style hazy. This is kind of like an old school I p A. But

it was really good um and too man. It actually had almost like a warming effect, uh, like the body it had, Like as I was drinking, it kind of made me feel good that the leaves are falling a little bit outside and it's kind of cooling down, and it kind of feel like this beer almost warned me up from the from the inside out. That's nice. That's sweet and almost as heartwarming as a really good dad joke like empty your can or point or whatever. Of course I'm gonna do that, man. I never leave any

drops behind, No soldier left behind, man. But yeah, what were your thoughts on this beer? Yeah, this one definitely had more West Coast tendencies, more piney, more bitter, and a little bit of that grapefruit pith. I agree. I love I p A S. I feel like I could never exhaust all the I p a s in the world, like I try them all man, I'm up for trying every single one of them, and this one had just this massive West Coast vibe that I totally appreciate. But

I don't really drink that often. So big thanks to our listener Brent for sending this one. All right, Yeah, thanks again, Brent. I didn't I forgot that he sent this one our way, but thank you, Brent. Yeah. Always fun to get to try beers from breweries that we don't even have access to here where we live in Atlanta, So thanks Brent. Um. All right, Matt, that's gonna do

it for this episode. If you're out there listening and you want the show notes, you want the summary and also the links to some of the things we talked about in the episode. Today, we'll just go to our website at how to money dot com and sometimes We ask for a review at this point if you've enjoyed the episode, But then sometimes we don't, and this time we're not going to. We just say bye, and so this is gonna be one of those times. Man. Until next time, Best friends Out, Best Friends Out. M