15 Brilliant Ways to Save $5,000 in 3 Months

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When you already have your hands full with rent, utility bills, and groceries, saving up is no easy feat. Things can be twice as hard if you’re working with a tight budget, and finding money to put into an emergency fund might just be the last thing on your mind.

You may, however, be happy to know that there are several ways to save out there that you may not have even considered. In this blog post, you’ll learn exactly how to save $5,000 in 3 months through 15 different ideas.

1. Come Up With a Plan

Before you can start saving any money, it’s a good idea to figure out how exactly to do this and where you currently stand. Financial experts recommend that you ask yourself the following questions:

• How much income are you making?
• How much money have you already managed to save?
• Where can you make cuts to your budget?

After you find the answers to these questions, you can start creating a path toward your goal of saving $5,000 in the next three months, which works out to $1,667 per month, or $57 a day.

The ideal next step would be to go through your bank statements and check how you’ve been spending. Apps like Personal Capital can help you track your spending.

If you’re not into techy solutions, you can try the envelope method to break down your expenses and see where your spending goes every month. As you collect data, you’ll likely be able to see areas where you can start trimming off expenses. The longer you do this, the more accurate your data will be.

2. Get on a Budget

If you’re serious about learning how to save $5,000 in 3 months, then creating and sticking to a realistic budget to ensure that you always have money to put toward your savings is very beneficial. Budgeting allows you to track the money that comes in and manage how it’s spent.

You can get started by using a budget planner, such as Mint, to track all your expenses. Try to plan an accurate budget for all your expenses for the next month or for all three. When you do this, do your best to cut back on all unnecessary spending to see where you can free up money to transfer over to your savings.

Sticking to your budget may seem like hard work at first but try to remember why you started to begin with. Doing this can help you cut back on needless spending while helping you direct your money to your savings goal.

3. Separate Your Savings From Your Spending Money

It’s recommended that you separate your spending money from your savings. You can do this by opening a high-yield online savings account that’s separate from your checking account. If you mix your spending with your savings, you’ll be more likely to spend it.

Once you open your separate savings account, it’s beneficial to set automatic transfers each month. This will help to ensure that part of your income goes straight to your savings account before you can spend a dollar on a new subscription.

4. Save Money on Groceries

When trying to save on your groceries, you can get started by looking for coupons or apps that you can use, such as Ibotta and Fetch, along with weekly specials. You can also shop at Aldi or try to shop during sales rather than paying full price at more expensive competitors like Wegmans, Kroger, or Publix.

There are also options to buy in bulk from different wholesalers such as Sam’s Club, where you can get lower prices on high-quality products compared to traditional stores. Another recommendation is to create a budget specifically for your groceries each week, which is often the easiest way to save money when things are tight.

By using a weekly or monthly meal plan, you might also find that your grocery budget is easier to manage as you won’t find yourself picking up unnecessary extras. Here are just a few ideas that can help you stick to your grocery savings plan:

• Buy in bulk when things are on sale
• Look for coupons that you can use at the store
• Prep your meals ahead of time

While the average cost of your groceries will depend on where you live, you can save more by slashing your grocery bill. Grocery budgeting is all about shopping sales and choosing low-price alternatives for your usual items.

5. Lower Your Living Expenses

The next thing you can look into is lowering your living expenses. There are several things you can do when it comes to this, such as reducing your internet speed. However, food is one of the biggest expenses you face on a daily basis and has also spiked quite a bit since the pandemic hit.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to eat cup noodles for three months but it is suggested that you go out less and cook at home more. Even if you aren’t the best cook in the world, think long and hard about how much you want to save up that money.

You could also start paying off extra expenses like your credit cards to help you cut back on having to pay interest. There are many other things you can cut off in the meantime, like gym memberships, ATM fees, coffee, and monthly subscriptions, all of which are discussed in more detail below.

6. Pick Up a Side Hustle

There are two obvious options for people who wish to save money: either cut down on your costs or find more sources of income. Depending on how much time you have, you may be able to add income to your life by doing either of the two, which will help to build your savings.

Because of the pandemic, side hustles have become more and more accessible, so there’s never been an easier time to make extra money than now. Below are 5 of the most popular side hustles you can look into.

Virtual Assistant

According to Indeed, virtual assistants make an average of $23 an hour. This means you can make anywhere between $100 to $500 every week, depending on how many hours you work and the extent of your job. If you’re new to the gig, you might want to start with something you’re already familiar with, such as scheduling meetings, setting up appointments, creating graphics, and more.

Drive for Lyft or Uber

Driving for ride-hailing services such as Uber or Lyft is another possible way to get some extra cash. To get started, all you need is a dependable car and a clean driving record.

While these jobs tend to pay a decent amount of cash, they tend to work best for people who want flexible hours.

Deliver Food with Instacart or DoorDash

When it comes to the food delivery industry, you’ve got a wide range of options to choose from, including UberEats, DoorDash, Instacart, and more. Because they all employ delivery drivers, you can apply as a delivery rider, where you’ll get orders instantly through your phone, SMS, or the available app.

You’ll then need to make your way to the desired restaurant and pick up orders to deliver to the customer.

Do Yard Work

Landscaping and lawn care are some of the easiest services to provide when spring and summer arrive. This is a time when people want their yards to look immaculate for their parties, barbeques, and other outdoor gatherings.

If you have experience in mowing lawns, raking leaves, plowing, or shoveling snow, this could be a good service for you to offer to your friends and neighbors. Everyone is pretty busy these days and most won’t have the energy or time to do it themselves, so there’s a chance you’ll be able to find customers willing to pay for such services.

Starting an Online Business

One of the more challenging ways of earning money in the form of a side hustle is starting your own business. No matter what you start, whether you’re thinking about a dropshipping or print-on-demand business, or even starting a blog, you can expect to do everything yourself.

This is harder to pull off in the beginning but can bring the biggest payoff in the long run. Other options include starting your own online store, where you can make extra money from existing digital store platforms such as Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, and more.

7. Get a Raise at Work

If you’re certain that you’re doing the most you can at work but still finding it hard to save, you can look into asking your boss for a raise. While many people are nervous about asking for a raise, you can increase your chance for success by doing the following:

• Solving at-work problems for your boss
• Putting in extra effort to deliver services beyond expectations
• Standing out from your coworkers as a person who brings solutions
• Becoming someone who can bring the company more money

Once you’ve got a proven track record, you can ask your boss for a meeting to let them know that you’re looking to discuss a raise. Researching salary details for your job position and job duties before starting the meeting is beneficial.

You could also create a list that highlights any of the other extra tasks you’ve been doing for the company to show all your efforts.

8. Use a Round-up Savings App

A smart and quick money-saving trick is to use a round-up savings app, like Acorns. This app allows you to round up your transactions to the closest dollar value and will then invest that amount automatically.

Acorns is a simple investment app that rounds up your everyday purchases and automatically invests the difference. Your investments are then diversified across more than 7,000 stocks and bonds, while the app keeps everything balanced for you.

Acorns also offers a checking account and debit card so you can save, invest, and earn while you spend.

Check out Acorns right here.

9. Use a Cash Back App

Did you know that you can get your cash back on pretty much anything you buy (but the percentage will vary)? To get started, you can use apps such as InboxDollars or Swagbucks where you can look through popular cashback offers and coupons from many of the country’s top stores.

With these apps, you can earn between 1% to 6% on average depending on where you buy things. You can also use them to collect points on your purchases which you can then cash in for gift cards to be used for Starbucks, Walmart, Amazon, and more.

10. Consider Living Somewhere With Lower Rent

Rent can blow a huge hole in your savings account, especially if you’re paying for an expensive place. Fortunately, there are a few options you can look into, such as considering living somewhere cheaper.

Think about the amount you could save if you move out of a 2-bedroom penthouse in New York City to a small, 1-bedroom house in Maplewood where you can reach Manhattan in as little as 30 minutes.

This is the equivalent of going from a $3,500 apartment to a $1,900 home. There are also more extreme options if you’re looking to cut back on a lot of money, such as moving to another state entirely.

Finally, consider working remotely so you can also save on commuting expenses. While these aren’t the easiest choices to think about, be sure to weigh out your options before coming up with a solution and before you leave your current address.

11. Negotiate Your Cable, Internet, and Phone Bills

On average, every house in the US now pays over $1,100 for cable services. As such, many consumers are switching over to streaming services to get their daily TV fix. If you don’t take saving your money seriously, these expenses can add up quickly.

Luckily, you can negotiate your internet, cable, and phone bills with the help of asktrim.com. The app can help to analyze your spending patterns to find loopholes where you can save money which then negotiates your bills and cancels old subscriptions for you.

If you choose to negotiate on your own, because it costs more to look for and get new customers than to keep an existing client, many companies will agree with your negotiated price. But, in the event they don’t, it might be time to consider canceling their services and get started with streaming services instead.

12. Negotiate Your Auto and Homeowner’s Insurance

Whether you have homeowners or auto insurance, now might be the time to renegotiate the rates of your existing contract if you’ve been with them for a while. When it comes to car insurance, everyone has the right to get re-evaluated each year. This shouldn’t be a problem so long as you have good credit and a clean record as a driver.

To get started with your insurance rates, you can visit TheZebra.com and compare rates. Researching the competition of your current provider and checking to see if they have any rewarding promos is also beneficial.

You can use this knowledge when trying to negotiate a better rate for your existing insurance. Talking to someone with the authority to change your terms is also important. If this doesn’t work, ask to be transferred to the cancellations team, and if you can’t get a better rate, be prepared to switch over to a competitor who can.

13. Cancel Unused Subscriptions

When you want to save money, you should consider letting go of all your unused subscriptions including the following:

• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Netflix
• Apple Music
• Games
• Pandora
• And more

To help you get started, you can use Trim (see above) or you can look into your credit card or bank statements to check out the recurring charges you may not otherwise have noticed.

Moving the money you save directly into your savings account is recommended by experts — you won’t miss it anyway since it was already being deducted from you.

14. Reduce Your Phone Plan

While cell phone services seem to be getting cheaper, bigger companies like Sprint and Verizon are getting more and more expensive. To save a little extra on mobile phone services, you can reevaluate your situation and ask yourself if you really need unlimited data coupled with the latest iPhone.

The truth is, you likely don’t really need either of these things, so reducing your plan to save money is recommended.

15. Give Up Unhealthy Habits

Whether it’s cigarettes, alcohol, vaping, gambling, or lottery tickets, everyone has vices, and even the $8 coffee you buy every morning will fall into this category. If you really want to save money, it’s not recommended that these stay in your life — there’s simply no way to save with them around.

The good news is, this change is only temporary, and once you achieve your goal in a couple of months, you can go back to your old habits.

Wrapping It Up

Saving isn’t the easiest thing to do but it’s not impossible. By following the above tips, you could go on to save even more than you’d imagined!

But, remember that if you want to save money, you should be willing to make a few adjustments and stick to your budget. You’ll be happy that you started sooner than later!