9 Simple Steps to Savings
Celebrate Issue #10 With a Recap of the Top Tips So Far
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
We reached 100 subscribers this week, thanks to some recent mentions, including in the excellent Normcore Tech. I started this list with about 20 friends and family, so it’s very humbling that most subscribers are now people I don’t know personally.
So, allow me to briefly reintroduce myself:
My name is Andrew
I enjoy saving money
I think saving money is a highly underrated way of building wealth and financial security[1]
I started this newsletter purely for fun. I don’t make money from this via ads, affiliate links, or anything else[2]
My posts will generally contain actionable and easy money-saving ideas meant to save you at least $100 per hour of work (and often far more)
Along the way, I aim to teach a little about the economic and financial concepts that underpin these ideas[3]
Since many of you are new, let’s celebrate newsletter #10 with my first 9 easily actionable tips, each of which could potentially save you more than $100, usually with little effort:
Cut Your Cable Bill in a Few Easy Steps - Save up to $600/year
Maximize Your Credit Card Rewards - Save up to $300/year
Don’t Trade Stocks - Don’t trade individual stocks, stick to low-cost index funds from a provider like Vanguard
Earn Cashback on Online Shopping - Save up to $500/year
Wait Until the Last Minute to Buy Tickets to Music and Sporting Events
Switch Your Cellphone to an MVNO - Save up to $600/year
Buy the Store Brand - Do what the experts do and buy store brands/private label
I’ll be back next week with a brand new tip. If you’re new, welcome! If not, thanks for sticking with the newsletter.
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please press the “like” button and share it with your friends! Also, if there are any topics you’re interested in, please send me your requests. And finally, if one of these tips helps you, I’d love to hear about it - just send me an email and I may (anonymously, of course) mention your story in a future post.
[1] Saving money is far superior to earning more money - it’s (usually) tax-free and doesn’t require you to work much harder, just develop good habits. And when I talk about saving money, I generally don’t mean denying yourself things. I mean making sure that you are getting the absolute best deal on what you want.
[2] There are some great money-saving websites out there (and a lot of bad ones). But almost all of them exist to make money for the website owner. As a result, writers have incentives to make posts longer to fit in more ads, recommend things that generate lucrative affiliate fees, and to sell their own products. Some sites strike a good balance (for example, The Wirecutter, which I often consult when making a major purchase, earns its revenue through affiliate links) but many don’t. I am doing this newsletter for fun and am not trying to make money from readers.
[3] Previous posts have touched upon oligopolistic competition, passive versus active investing, 2019’s dramatic fall in interest rates, and the economics of wireless resellers (MVNOs).