25 Proven Money Hacks to Transform Your Financial Future

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As we are experts in personal finance, we wanted to share with you the best money hacks.

By the end of this article, you will know some hacks to help you save more money and maybe even find out how to get free money.

Pay Yourself First (Automate your savings)

It’s pretty common to pay your bills, and then spend what’s left over after that.

Instead of doing that, it’s best to send money straight to your savings, so that you don’t end up spending it.

Even better than that, the best money hack for this is to automate your savings, so that you don’t even need to think about it!

Betterment

Betterment is the leading robo-advisor online investment platform.

They will invest your money for you, depending on what your goals are (they will ask you to select what these are).

Personal Capital

The main focus of Personal Capital is investing. We love Personal Capital for the overview of finances that it’s able to give you. This is a great cash app hack.

You can look at:

• Net worth
• Cash flow
• Retirement savings
• Budget
• Investable cash
• Portfolio balance

Organize Your Finances

Never underestimate how much being organized can help you save money and be less stressed.

Getting them organized will mean no nasty surprises, and being better prepared for the future.

Have a simple budget, get a family calendar that you can all write upcoming engagements on and have a discussion about what you need to pay for. This will help you to manage your money.

It always helps to have all of your paperwork stored away in a folder with tabs for the different sections, so it’s all to hand.

Start a Simple Budget

Using a Budget get a bad rep, there’s no denying that. But is it justified? We don’t think so.

Having a budget means that you have created a plan for where you want your hard-earned dollars to go.

You need to know how much you have coming in, and how much you have going out.

Then you will want to make a plan for the money left over – save for holidays, debt, and any of your savings goals.

After you’ve got the numbers written down in black and white, then you can look at your overall financial situation and make any adjustments.

Actually Include Your Spouse

When you’re full of motivation with sorting out your finances and on a roll, it can be hard to stop to speak to your partner.

If they haven’t previously been on board with the financial situation, it can be a tough one.

But you need to make sure that you’re on the same page, and have the same goals that you are working towards.

Sit down with them and have a chat about your goals as a family. Then you will need to crunch the numbers – and you can’t argue with the numbers!

Start a Legitimate Side Hustle

One of the best ways to get where you want to be financially is to start up a side hustle.

We live in an age where we are able to work outside of the regular 9-5. There has never been a better time to make some extra money!

There are so many different things that you could try to do, such as:

• Taking surveys
• Tutoring
• Proofreading
• Freelance writing
• Pinterest VA

There are thousands of flexible side hustles that you could start today, and use that money for your goals.

Earn Free Gift Cards

There are a lot of ways that you can earn free gift cards, and this can be a great way of saving money on treats.

Say you love your Starbucks, but you can’t justify the cost within your budget. This is where free gift cards can help you get your treat, with no spending guilt.

Start Meal Planning

This is one of the best money hacks that can really change a lot in your household.

Meal planning doesn’t need to be really complicated – start by writing out all of the meals that you currently eat.

Then, choose some meals that you could eat for that week. Once you’ve done that, you need to write down the ingredients you need to cook those meals.

The next step is to then go to your fridge, pantry, etc and then see which ingredients you already have. Once you know what you have, you can create a grocery list for the ingredients that you need to get.

That’s it! Take your list to the shop and stick to your list.

Drink More Water and Exercise

If you want to avoid costly medical bills later on, here is a great hack for this.

Not only that but if you are looking after yourself, you can look after your family too.

Cut the Cord

This is one of the best money hacks that you can do in your household.

There are so many cable alternatives that there really is no excuse to keep paying for expensive cable. 

Not only will it save you money, but it will give you more time for things that can benefit you.

There are ways to get free movies online, and even free internet!

Save on Groceries

The average family of 4 spends around $800 – $900 per month, which is almost $10,000 per year. If you could cut back on costs, what would you do with the extra money?

We’ve gone over meal planning, but you could sign up for $5 Meal Plan to help you out.

A quick money hack to save on your groceries is to introduce more meatless meals to your list.

You could make switches to generic brands to save money quickly.

Destroy Your Debt Fast

The best money hack that you can do is give yourself a pay rise by paying off your debt.

With most debt, there’s the interest that you are paying on top of the money that you owe, which means that you’re paying more than you need to.

When you have debt payments, you have money tied up that you can not use for other more important things. What would you use the money for that you are currently using for debt payments?

Earn Cash Back

This is a good money hack to use to save money on the things that you are already buying. It’s free money – so if you’re wondering how to get free Paypal money, these are a good place to start.

Ibotta

Ibotta is a free app where you can get cash back on items you’ve purchased.

You need to select the products that you are planning on purchasing, then buy them, and upload your receipt.

Rakuten

To use Rakuten, you need to find the website on there that you wish to purchase, then click through to the site and make your purchase as normal.

Clicking on the link on the Rakuten site will track your visit for cash back.

Capital One Shopping Price Protection

(Please note: Capital one compensates us when you sign up for the protection plan using the links provided.)

Capital One Shopping is a great money hack to save you money on things that you’ve already bought.

Have you ever bought something, only for it to go on sale shortly after?

Their Protection Plan scans your emails to find when this has happened and works to get back the difference in cost for you.

It starts the refund for you so you get money returned to you quickly!

Swagbucks

Swagbucks is one of those sites which offer a variety of ways that you can make or save money.

The cashback works similarly to Rakuten, in that you will need to click through from the site onto the site that you are purchasing from.

Earn Money Watching Movies and Videos

Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it’s not! You can make money watching movies and videos online.

One of our favorite places to earn money doing this is with Inbox Dollars.

They have a section on there for watching videos which is called Cash Video.

They will give you a playlist to watch, and if you don’t want to watch it but still generate the money, is to let it play in the background on mute. It’s a good way of getting free money online.

Get Paid to Take Online Surveys

 

You can get paid for answering surveys on specific sites, which is a really easy way of making money if you are doing something such as standing in line at the store or in the bath.

Swagbucks

As mentioned before, Swagbucks is a great site on which you can earn extra money, as they have so many options available on there.

You can answer surveys on Swagbucks to earn SB’s, which you can redeem for cash or gift cards.

Inbox Dollars

As well as being able to watch videos on Inbox Dollars for cash, you are also able to do surveys.

The surveys are only a few minutes long and will earn you around $0.50 per survey.

Survey Junkie

Survey Junkie is one of the most popular and well-known survey sites out there.

You will earn points that you can convert to Paypal or gift cards.

Download a Money Making App

There are millions of apps out there, and that’s including a lot of money-making apps.

Some money-making apps that it’s worth downloading and trying out include:

• MyPoints
• Opinion Outpost

Start a Passive Income Stream

If you pick one money hack to try, setting up passive income streams is the one to try.

The reason that passive income streams are the best money hack, is because you don’t need to work for every cent you earn.

Investing

Without a doubt, one of the best passive income streams out there.

You can invest each month, and let the money sit in there to accumulate interest over time. The longer that you leave it in there, the better.

If you’re just getting started Robinhood and Betterment are great options! 

Online Business

Starting an online business isn’t very passive in the beginning – you’ll need to put the work in.

But once it’s all up and running, there are automated systems that you can put into place, such as email funnels.

Stay Home to Entertain Yourself

It’s safe to say that we pay a lot of money these days to be entertained.

One of the best money hacks that you can do for your financial future is to learn how to have fun at home.

After all, you pay a ton of money out in your mortgage payments or rent, so you’ve got to enjoy it!

There are lots of ways that you can have fun at home, such as:

• Having a games night
• Movie night with popcorn
• Pot luck with friends
• Water fights in the summer

Avoid Big Impulse Purchases with the “30 Day Rule”

Impulse purchases can derail a budget, but it’s often hard to not give in to temptation.

A good way of making sure that you don’t make impulse purchases? Put in place a 30 Day Rule.

Wait for 30 days before making that purchase, to make sure that you genuinely want it, and give yourself enough time to really think it through.

Learn How to Live a Frugal and Happy Life

We live in a world that encourages constant spending to have fun and feel good.

But what if you could do those things without getting into debt and filling your house up with a load of junk you didn’t even want?

Find free or cheap things that you can do with your family, and stop buying ‘stuff’ just because it was on sale or it looked cute.

Learning how to appreciate what you already have, and live a frugal life, will be one of the best money hacks that you can do.

Improve Your Credit Score

Having a good credit score can save you money over time, believe it or not!

When lenders are looking at your credit to determine whether or not to lend to you, they reserve the best rates and deals for those who have better credit scores.

This means that you could end up with deals that aren’t as good – meaning, you end up paying more than if you had a better credit score.

Final Thoughts on Money Hacks

We can’t predict the future, but we can prepare for it in the best way possible.

These money hacks will help you to change your financial future, and create the best path for you and your family.

The whole point of money hacks is to make life easier for you, so we hope that you enjoy using these tips in your life.