Question #8 of GOBankingRates’ Top 100 Money Experts Series
What’s the best way to save money on everyday purchases?
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner knows something about making dramatic financial changes. The founder of Making Sense of Cents paid off nearly $40,000 in student loans in just seven months, then left her corporate job to travel full time in an RV and sailboat for nearly a decade. But her biggest money-saving insights don’t come from major lifestyle overhauls. They come from small, everyday tweaks that most people overlook.
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“One of the best ways I’ve found to save money on everyday purchases is by being intentional,” Schroeder-Gardner shared. “That means making a list before you go to the grocery store, planning your meals to avoid food waste and comparing prices before buying.”
After more than 13 years of helping millions of readers through her award-winning blog, she’s identified three key strategies that can help almost anyone save hundreds of dollars each month — without feeling deprived.
Small Changes, Big Impact
When asked about everyday habits that created substantial savings, Schroeder-Gardner points to one game-changer: meal planning.
“Meal prepping and meal planning has easily saved us hundreds of dollars each month,” she said. “We used to rely a lot on takeout or pre-packaged meals, especially on busy days, but the costs really added up.”
Her approach isn’t about magically becoming a gourmet chef or spending hours in the kitchen. Instead, she focuses on simple systems: “I batch cook some staples, freeze leftovers and always have a few ‘lazy meals’ ready for nights when we don’t feel like cooking. It doesn’t have to be complicated — just having a plan makes a big difference.”
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The results speak for themselves. “We’ve easily saved over $300 a month by skipping convenience meals,” Schroeder-Gardner said. For a family spending $400-500 monthly on food, that represents a 60% to 75% reduction in food costs just from planning ahead.
Her secret? Treating meal planning like any other important task. “Once I started planning simple meals for the week and prepping ingredients ahead of time, our grocery spending dropped and we stopped wasting so much food.”
The Invisible Money Drains
While most people focus on obvious expenses like coffee or lunch out, Schroeder-Gardner warns about “invisible expenses” that quietly drain budgets.
“Subscriptions are a big one,” she said. “It’s easy to forget about the streaming service you signed up for during a free trial, or that annual renewal you didn’t notice on your credit card.”
Her solution is refreshingly simple: monthly financial check-ins. “I recommend going through your bank or credit card statements once a month and asking yourself: ‘Did I actually use this?’ If the answer is no, cancel it.”
But the most costly invisible expense might surprise you: interest on debt. “If you’re carrying a balance, it can eat away at your budget and cost a lot of money over time,” Schroeder-Gardner said. While not exactly “invisible,” debt interest often gets overlooked in monthly budgeting because it feels fixed — but addressing it can free up real money for other goals.
When You Think You’ve Cut Everything
For people who feel they’ve already trimmed every possible expense, Schroeder-Gardner suggests looking beyond line-item cuts to bigger-picture strategies.
“If you’ve already cut the obvious stuff, I’d look at the bigger-picture expenses,” she said. “Do you have a good budget in place? Are you meal planning to avoid food waste? Could you refinance a loan or negotiate a lower internet or phone bill?”
She also recommends trying a “no-spend challenge” for a week or month. “It can reset your habits and help you see spending patterns you may have missed.”
And here’s where Schroeder-Gardner’s advice gets especially interesting: Sometimes the answer isn’t cutting more — it’s earning more.
“If you feel like you have nothing to cut, then you may want to look into making more money,” she said. “Back when I was paying off my student loans, I cut my budget as much as I could, but then I realized that I had to find ways to make more money. I was able to pay off $40,000 in student loans in just 7 months — mainly with side hustle income.”
Whether it’s positioning yourself for a promotion at work, freelancing in your spare time, or launching a small business, increasing your income can create the financial breathing room you’ve been looking for.
The Technology Advantage
Schroeder-Gardner also leverages technology to maximize savings with minimal effort. “I like using cashback apps, grocery receipt scanning apps like Fetch Rewards and browser extensions to stack savings. These little steps don’t take much time, but they can add up over the course of a month.”
The key is stacking multiple small savings rather than relying on any single strategy. A cashback app might save $5, a browser extension another $10 and meal planning $300 — but together, they can create meaningful monthly savings.
The Mindset Shift
Perhaps most importantly, Schroeder-Gardner emphasizes that sustainable money-saving starts with changing how you think about money.
“The turning point for me was realizing that I didn’t have to wait until retirement to live the life I truly wanted,” she said. “After paying off my student loans, I left my 8-to-5 job, started working for myself, and spent around a decade traveling full-time by RV and sailboat — all while growing a business I loved.”
This perspective shift — from restricting spending to being intentional about money — is what makes the difference between feeling deprived and feeling empowered.
Her advice boils down to three core principles: Plan ahead (especially for food), audit your invisible expenses monthly, and don’t be afraid to focus on earning more when cutting isn’t enough. None of these require extreme lifestyle changes, but together, they can free up hundreds of dollars every month.
“It really doesn’t have to be complicated,” Schroeder-Gardner said. “Just being intentional and having a plan makes a big difference.”
For someone who turned financial intentionality into a full-time RV lifestyle and a thriving business, that’s advice worth taking seriously.
This article is part of GOBankingRates’ Top 100 Money Experts series, where we spotlight expert answers to the biggest financial questions Americans are asking. Got a question of your own? You could win $500 just for asking — learn more at GOBankingRates.com.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Frugal Living Expert Michelle Schroeder-Gardner: How I Save Hundreds per Month, One Expense at a Time
