Money Hacks You Need To Know

1) Stop Paying For Airport Parking

If you travel a lot, you know that airport parking can get very expensive very quickly. At a cost of 10 to 20 dollars a day, even an average trip can cost you well over 120 dollars in parking fees. There is a cheaper alternative and it comes with some benefits that you might not be considering.

The hack is is to start taking Uber to the airport. Unless you live hours away from your closest airport, Uber is going to save you a considerable penny. Take two 20 dollar Uber trips and you can still end up with a savings of 60 dollars or more. If you travel frequently, this can produce a nice annual savings and it comes with a few nice perks.

One of these perks is the ability to be dropped off and picked up right at your terminal. There is no need to stop at an airport parking lot and wait for the courtesy shuttle. You also do not have to take that shuttle on a tour of the parking lot picking up other passengers and then visit each terminal one by one until you get to yours. So, not only can an Uber save you money, it can save you a good deal of time and frustration.

2) Get Your Television For Free

By now you obviously know that cable and satellite television is a huge waste of money. Sure, they have nice introductory deals but you will eventually end up being stuck in a contract with a monthly payment in excess of 100 dollars. This has caused a mass exodus from the subscription television in favor of low cost apps. But there is a problem, those apps are expensive too.

Most people view these apps as a huge money saver, so they have no problem signing up for multiple apps. Some people even have subscriptions with all of them and there is the problem. Take a Prime membership for 12 dollars a month, Hulu for $13, Disney for $15 and don’t forget Netflix for 20 dollars (if you want 4K). That all adds up to over 60 dollars a month with taxes and doesn’t include all of the other smaller streaming apps that you might be paying for like ESPN or Paramount.

All in all, you could be paying as much as 100 dollars a month for these apps and so you are right back to the cost of cable and satellite television.

Stop paying for the apps and take advantage of all of the free ad supported content like Crackle and Freevee. It will take a bit of adjustment, but in the end, you will get just as much entertainment and save over 1200 dollars a year in app costs.

3) Learn Your Programmable Thermostat

As part of energy star ratings, all homes now come with programmable thermostats and it has been that way for well over a decade. These thermostats can save you hundreds of dollars in energy costs, but almost nobody uses them. Why, because they are complicated and frustrating.

This frustration has led to a booming industry in the smart thermostat market. These thermostats are practically plug and play, but they are expensive. Depending on where you live, it can cost upwards of 400 dollars to have one of these devices installed. That means it would take the average household 2 to 3 years to recoup the price. Even worse, most people are replacing perfectly capable (but complicated) programmable thermostats.

Stop wasting money and sit down and learn your thermostat. Not by reading the guide but by watching a YouTube video. Simply take your thermostat model and do a quick search and you will find dozens of videos explaining how to simply set up your thermostat. Then, start using the device you already have to save hundreds of dollars on unnecessary heating and cooling while you are away.

4) Quit The Gym

Exercise is important, but the only thing most people lose at the gym is money. You have the greatest intentions when you join the gym but what generally happens is you end up hating the gym scene and then find yourself locked in a contract that is impossible to get out of.

Take the time to cancel that contract and start saving anywhere from 400 to 600 dollars a year. It might involve jumping through some hoops, but jump through them.

Once you have cancelled that membership, turn once again to YouTube for your daily workout fix. There are literally thousands of workouts on YouTube meaning that you can do a new workout every day and never get bored. Most do not even require equipment, but if you want to pick up some exercise equipment on the cheap, just look to Craigslist and buy it for pennies on the dollar of the new price.

5) Keep Your Phone An Extra Year

It used to be that by the time we could get a new cellular phone, the old one was completely worn out. The battery was toast, the operating system was junk and the processor could barely keep up with the simplest of apps. This is due in part to the state of the cell phone industry years ago. It was still developing and at a rapid pace. Such a rapid pace that phones became outdated quickly and badly enough that they became unusable.

This is not the case anymore. Today out phones have as much capability as a small computer and they do not get outdated as quickly. Manufacturers still want you to buy new ones though, so they are advertising gimmicks. Upgrade your phone and get a better camera or a phone that folds (didn’t we already have those). One manufacturer even got in trouble recently for slowing down their phones with an update, claiming it was to protect battery life. All this goes to show you that our old phones are no longer junk.

Instead of buying a new phone every year, buy a new one every 2 to 3 years. With phones costing over 1000 dollars these days, the savings potential is real, obvious and substantial.