Many people struggle with their finances because of the simple fact that human wants are unlimited while the resources available to meet those needs are limited. If you feel that you don’t have enough money to do the things you’ll love; you can reduce the financial pressure by finding ways to earn more money or finding ways to trim your expenses. However, finding ways to earn more money is not always easy because your employer often determines how much your time and skills are worth.

However, many people are scared to trim their expenses because they don’t want to reduce their standard of living. Here are some ideas to help you free up some money from your monthly expenses without reducing your standard of living or quality of life.

1. Cut/Share subscriptions

Subscriptions are great for keeping you connected to products and services that you use each month and subscriptions could save you time and energy when they are on auto-renewals. However, you need to check through your monthly statements regularly to identify subscriptions to products/services that you no longer need/use—it doesn’t make sense to pay for such services.

• If you are not a regular at the gym, you may want to drop the subscription and start running instead
• Why pay for audio streaming services when you can get it free. The 15-second ads on the free version of the free service won’t kill you
• Consider a family account for services such as Netflix, Spotify or Amazon Prime instead of paying individual subscriptions
• You may want to rethink your need for magazine subscriptions especially when digital versions are free or cheaper

2. Find better deals on fixed costs

You’ll have a number of fixed cost expenses such as rent, mortgage, insurance and cellphone plans. Such expenses don’t change each month and it might be somewhat difficult to alter the costs of such expenses.  However, you can still free up some money by shopping around for better deals on such expenses

• Auto insurance is one of the biggest regular expenses. If you wonder about auto insurance, shopping around online could find you better deals in terms of extending your coverage or reducing your premiums.  Auto Insurance comparison services are a very smart method to immediately reduce this fixed cost and have full coverage.
• Paying anything around $100 a month for a smartphone plan is simply too expensive. It might be somewhat stressful to switch carriers but you can save a great deal of money over one year by switching companies.
• Prescriptions medications often cost a great deal of money and the money can burn a big hole in your wallet if your health insurance doesn’t cover such medications. You can get a better deal on prescription medicines by shopping around pharmacies. You can also get your doctor for recommendations on the generic brands of such prescription medications.

3. Save money on groceries

You can save money on food by cooking at home instead of eating out, but grocery expenses when not properly managed can also burn a big hole in your finances. Here are a couple tips for saving money on groceries

• Use coupon apps to find deals and discounts on grocery shopping
• Stock up grocery items when they are on sale but make sure you are stocking up on items you really need
• Buy some items in bulk from warehouse clubs such as Sam’s Club or Costco
• Let go of your bias and try out some store brands instead of buying name brands – generic brands could be as much as 25% cheaper than name brands.