Josh Elledge - Chief Executive Angel
Hi! I’m Josh Elledge, the Chief Executive Angel of SavingsAngel.com and welcome to the SavingsAngel show! I’m podcasting to you on the cusp of the New Year in Orlando, Florida.
I am an extremely busy consumer expert, money-saving advocate, syndicated newspaper columnist, and the guy that turns digital entrepreneurs into media celebrities with UpMyInfluence.com. I love what I do and can’t wait to get going on today’s episode.
In order to help you save more, earn more and live more abundantly on today’s show I’ll be covering:
- Ways to Save Money in the New Year
- Save More and Eat Better in 2021
LINKS FROM THE PODCAST:
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Ways to Save Money in the New Year
It’s almost the end of the year and 2020 has raced by in the blink of an eye. No matter how fast (or slow) this year has gone for you, one thing we should all be doing is considering how to save money in the new year of 2021. Here are a few ways to pad your savings account with a little more dough this January.
Revisit Your Budget
Many of us establish a monthly budget, live by it, and never revisit the plan. First thing’s first, take another look at that budget. Dust off your checkbook or whip out that spreadsheet and look at the percentage you’re putting into savings. Could you perhaps increase that amount, in the new year, even if only by, say, 5%? This type of small change can really impact your savings over time without hitting your wallet too hard in the day-to-day.
Also, look at what you are spending day-to-day. Do you really need that second caramel macchiato, or can you limit your spending to one coffee a day? Take a look at expenditures like that — they can really add up over time, and that’s money you could have just as easily saved.
Try to decrease the amount you spend on unnecessary ‘wants’, if you can. Even a little decrease in this type of spending can see big savings over the course of 2021, and as we learned with the economic crisis of 2020, you can’t ever have enough in savings.
Find Ways to Lower Your Bills
Easier said than done, right? I know, this seems obvious, but think about it. Your essentials are just that; essential. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways we can save on our day-to-day bills.
Can you look into other car insurance rates for a competitive, lower premium from another provider? Are there ways you can score discounts with your current provider? Some companies offer safe driver discounts, direct deposit discounts, student discounts, and more. See if there’s an opportunity to save here that you hadn’t utilized before.
You could also save on homeowner’s insurance by upgrading your home’s appliances or security systems, too. Sure, this requires an investment on the front end, but it’s an investment that will increase your home’s value or security and also potentially save you on an insurance premium.
Also, I recommend ordering an energy audit for your home from your utility provider. This audit will tell you where you’re using the most energy, which can tell you where you need to cut back on usage. This can push you to be more environmentally conscious and help you save each month on utility bills.
Use Gift Cards!
In the spirit of the season, you’ll likely receive some gift cards or certificates later this month. Save at least some of those for a rainy day!
One of the best ways to buy things you want or need later down the line is to save your gift cards and then when the time's right (perhaps the item is on super-sale or you have rewards or coupons), buy it with the applied discounts and your gift cards. This can make, say, a new home appliance a 1/4 of the cost to you, and instead of having bought something you probably didn’t need or use on a whim right after the holidays, you waited and bought something you really wanted and/or needed.
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Save More and Eat Better in 2021
Alright SavingsAngel friends, let’s talk about cooking for a moment. We all have busy lives, and we’re all looking to cook homemade meals on a budget. Mrs.SavingsAngel and I have spent years trying to perfect making budget-friendly, delicious homemade meals that are also fast and easy to make. We finally found the answer and that’s HelloFresh, America’s #1 Meal Kit. HelloFresh delivers amazing, pre-measured ingredients to your door so you can put together delicious, seasonal recipes in a flash. HelloFresh eliminates the need for trips to the grocery store, figuring out recipes and weekly meals, and it makes home-cooking fun, easy, and affordable.
HelloFresh totally eliminates stressful, time-consuming meal planning and grocery store trips. You can actually enjoy cooking and get dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less. The best part? They offer 23 recipes each week featuring all sorts of flavor palettes, ingredient combinations, cuisines, diets, and more.
HelloFresh also saves you money and it helps out with portion control. You’re saving on your weekly meals and you aren’t overbuying for your meal ingredients. As your SavingsAngel, I love this about HelloFresh. It saves your wallet and the environment by reducing waste.
Mrs.SavingsAngel and I love their ginger plum chicken recipe. It’s sweet, it’s savory, and everyone else in the house loved it. We had no leftovers by the end of it, which means nothing sat in the fridge for a while to be forgotten about and eventually tossed. We didn’t overbuy on ingredients, we didn’t waste anything, and it only took about 35 minutes to cook! Yeah, that’s a fan favorite in the SavingsAngel household.
If you’ve liked what you’ve heard and want to hear more, go to HelloFresh.com/savingsangel10 and use code ‘savingsangel10’ for 10 free meals, including free shipping! Yeah, that’s right, I’m hooking you up, SavingsAngel friends. Give it a try and see what you think; I promise you’ll love it just as much as I did. That’s HelloFresh.com/savingsangel10, use code savingsangel10 for 10 free meals and free shipping.
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Transcription of Today's Episode
Hey there, Happy 2021! We made it. I'm Josh Elledge, the chief executive Angel at SavingsAngel.com. And welcome to the SavingsAngel show. This is Episode 286. Yeah, that many episodes – been doing this for about seven years now, maybe even eight. And I am podcasting to you from the happiest city in the world, Orlando, Florida. Now I'm an extremely busy consumer expert, money-saving advocate, syndicated newspaper columnist. And I'm that guy who helps consultants go from six to seven-figure rock stars over at UpMyInfluence.com. If you know someone who sells to business owners, I can help them. I love what I do, and I can't wait to get going on today's episode. So in order to help you save more, earn more, and live more abundantly on today's show, I'm gonna be covering ways to save money in the new year, we're going to talk about how to save more and eat better in 2021. All that and more. So let's get going.
So 2020 is behind us, it raced by in the blink of an eye. For real, it did, it couldn't have gone any quicker. Right now, no matter how fast or slow 2020 has gone for you, one thing we should all be doing is considering how to save money in the New Year of 2021. I want to reduce stress for you, I want you to live a more abundant life. So here are a few ways to pad your savings account with a little bit more dough this January, February, and beyond. Okay, let's see how many tips do I got? I got one, I got two, I got three, I got three big tips. Here we go.
Number one, revisit your budget. Now, many of us establish a monthly budget, live by it, and never revisit the plan. Now first things first, take another look at that budget, dust off your checkbook, or whip out that spreadsheet. And I want you to look at the percentage you're putting into savings, could you perhaps increase that amount in the new year, even if only by say 5%? This type of small change can really impact your savings over time without hitting your wallet too hard in the day to day. If you just set it, forget it, you probably won't notice it. Also, look at what you are spending day to day. Do you really need that second caramel macchiato? Or can you limit your spending to one coffee a day? Can you just do the coffee at home? Maybe invest in being able to make better coffee at home? Right? It's some simple stuff like that, right? But evaluate everywhere you invest your money. And, you know, just ask yourself, is it possible? And it may be if you're just like, ah, I don't really want to? Could you do an experiment? Could you just test it out? Just start with like, okay, well, I'm going to test out for one week and see if I really miss it. Or do I really really need this luxury, — just stuff like that? Is it canceling some extra services, streaming services, etc, right? And we're gonna get more into that in just a moment. But I want you to take a look at expenditures like that, because they really can add up over time. And that's money you could have just as easily saved. So I want you to try to decrease the amount you spend on unnecessary things if you can, even just a little decrease in this type of spending can see big savings over the course of 2021. And as we learned with the economic crisis and all the junk from 2020, you can't ever have enough in savings. We just need to be a little bit more personally, financially conservative. Just pad things up a little bit. I want you to be safe. All right.
Number two, find ways to lower your bills. Easier said than done. Right? I know this seems obvious but think about it. Your essentials are just that — essential. But that doesn't mean that there aren't ways we can save on our day to day bills. Can you look into other car insurance rates for a competitive lower premium from another provider? Are there ways you can score discounts with your current providers – some companies offer safe driver discounts, direct deposit discounts, student discounts, and more. See if there's an opportunity to save here that you hadn't utilized before. What I like to do is I call up all my service providers, and I say this bill is too much help me save some money, I'm really just trying to do right by my family. Okay, use those magic words. When you call and you'll be surprised what some providers can pull out. All right. Next, you could also save on homeowners insurance by upgrading your home's appliances or security systems, too. Sure this requires an investment on the front end. But it's an investment that will increase your home's value or security, and also potentially save you on an insurance premium. Also, I recommend ordering an energy audit for your home from your utility provider. Now, this audit will tell you where you're using the most energy – which can tell you where you need to cut back on usage. This can push you to be more environmentally conscious and help you save each month on utility bills. I mean, there's no sense in spending extra money on utility bills, that should be easy savings, there are when you go to savingsangel.com and just use our search feature, – there are a ton of articles on saving money on your utility bill, just search for everything you have, whether it's heating, air conditioning, utility, electricity, water, I got it all on there. We've been doing this for 14 years. So we got a lot of good content for you.
And then finally, use gift cards in the spirit of the season, you've likely received some gift cards or certificates, right? Save at least some of those for a rainy day, but don't lose them. Right? That's silly. And it's amazing. I actually have three gift cards I just found. Listen, do what I say don't do what I do. Because occasionally, yes, no, we want to be really good about gift cards, because that's just money lost. And I tell you what, people who sell gift cards, retailers that sell gift cards, oh, they know that there's just a percentage of that money that's never going to be claimed. All right. So just make sure you got a good system set up, keep gift cards in a special spot. So they don't get lost. And you know, write with a sharpie on the back what the value is, just keep on top of that. But this may be one of the best ways to buy things you need want or need later down the line. Just save your gift cards if you don't need anything immediately or you don't want anything immediately. Don't let it burn a hole in your stocking — your pocket, your purse, or whatever, right and just again, use it when there's maybe a super sale coming up. There's other additional rewards or coupons, and then buy it with the applied discounts and your gift cards. This can make say a new home appliance a quarter of the cost you and instead of having bought something you probably didn't need or you just bought on a whim because you're like I got this gift card I better spend it. Again, you waited and you bought something you really really really wanted or needed later down the road. Alright, just a few tips there. I'm telling you what, here's your homework, go to savingsangel.com and what I want you to do do a quick search on the things — if you, seriously, if you take one hour out of your schedule in the next week, right and just go spend some time on our website. Go search for articles that are going to help you you are going to come up with so many ideas that could very easily give you and your family a $200 to $400 a month pay raise isn't that when — times 12. Think about that. If we average it out to say $300 month savings, which that's very doable. Times 12, that's $3,600 just from the one hour that you spent researching savings ideas over at savingsangel.com nothing would make me happier This is why I'm here — for you to help you live a more abundant life.
All right SavingsAngel friends. Let's talk about cooking for a moment. We all have busy lives and we're all looking to cook homemade meals on a budget. Well, Mrs. SavingsAngel and – I feel like it's like you're hearing Santa and Mrs. Claus or something like that when I had address her like that – well Mrs. SavingsAngel and I have spent years trying to perfect making budget-friendly, delicious homemade meals that are also fast and easy to make. And we finally found the answer. And that's HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. I'm a fan like it is so fun when we get to HelloFresh box they deliver amazing pre-measured ingredients to your door so you could put together delicious seasonal recipes in a flash. HelloFresh eliminates the need for extra trips to the grocery store.
Oh, I need that one thing so I gotta go to the grocery store. Yeah, you don't need to do that anymore, right. because everything's in the box. You just figure out the recipes and weekly meals online and makes all your home cooking fun, easy, and affordable. And they also eliminate stressful time-consuming meal planning and grocery store trips. You can actually enjoy cooking and get dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less. The best part — they offer 23 — This is why I like HelloFresh, they have so much — so many options because not all your family members like the same stuff right? So you can consistently get the stuff you know your family is going to love 23 recipes every week featuring all sorts of flavor palettes, ingredient combinations, cuisines, diets, and more. HelloFresh also saves you money. Yes, we've done the math on this matter of fact — go search SavingsAngel. You'll see stuff I've done news stories about meal delivery, HelloFresh. Totally when you break down the cost per meal. Absolutely works out a-okay. Okay, you're saving on your weekly meals, you aren't over buying on your meal ingredients. And by the way, certainly, I mean, it's not even in the same ballpark. You know, this versus eating out is expensive, right compared to doing meal delivery through HelloFresh, which I love now as your SavingsAngel. This is what I love. It saves your wallet and the environment by reducing waste. Now Mrs.SavingsAngel and I love the ginger plum chicken recipe. It's sweet. It's savory. And everyone in the house loved it, we had no leftovers, which means nothing sat in the fridge afterward. You know being forgotten about and eventually tossed. We didn't overbuy ingredients, we got exactly what we needed. We used every bit of what we got. We didn't waste a thing. No dumping extra all that extra produce or whatever that wasted in the refrigerator in the garbage. That's not money saved. It took 35 minutes to cook. Mrs. SavingsAngel — I almost called her by her real name. Okay, it's Jenny — we did it together. So it's kind of like we're taking cooking classes together. Super fun. All right, it's a fan favorite in the SavingsAngel household. Now, if this sounds good, you want to hear more you just go to hellofresh.com/savingsangel10 – if you use that if you go to that URL, hellofresh.com/savingsangel10 and you use the code savingsangel10, you get 10 free meals including free shipping. I'm telling you it's seriously — this is such a hookup SavingsAngel friends, give it a try. See what you think. I promise you're gonna love it just as much as I did. That's hellofresh.com/savingsangel10 and use the code savingsangel10 for 10 free meals and free shipping. Thank you so much to our good friends at HelloFresh for sponsoring this segment.
Now if you've loved hearing everything on this podcast, please share this episode with a friend. People need this information you and I together can change lives I recommend taking a screenshot and posting on the Facebook, posting to tiktok wherever you hang out the mos,t maybe just text to somebody telling you what you and I together — let's do some good in the world, shall we? Now as always, if you have any specific questions or something you'd like to hear me talk about, you can drop me a comment in the podcast feedback. Write me on my Facebook group. Just search Facebook and just search SavingsAngel. You'll find us or call our podcast hotline at 407-205-9250 and leave me a message, I'll answer your question or write you back with your permission. I might even share your question or story with others on this show. With that have a wonderful week full of saving more, earning more, and living more abundantly. And thank you for listening and Happy 2021!
Listen, do what I say don't do what I do.
