12 Ways to Fight Inflation and Save Money Now

Inflation Survival Guide – Part 2 – How to fight inflation now.

This inflation thing has a lot of us on edge.

We can see it’s real all over the place—at the gas pump, in grocery stores, at restaurants, on new and used car lots, in building supply stores— and I could go on. It’s hard to be untucked if these inflation pressures are getting to you.

In last week’s post, Inflation Survival Guide – 4 Things You Need to Know to Ride Out Rising Prices, I promised to share some practical tips on how to fight inflation and save money now.

When I started researching tips for this post, I found most of the current advice on the interwebs circles around investing. I believe most of us want to talk about how we can fight inflation now, not the next time the economy gets out of sync.

So, what can we do NOW to fight inflation and save money?

Here are 12 ways to beat inflation before it beats you…

(Last time I made this list there were only 8!)

1. Delay your purchases as long as you can and don’t buy anything before you need it. Even if it’s a great price. Schedule purchases into the future whenever you can.

2. Resist the supersize. You’d love to have a five or ten-percent price reduction, wouldn’t you? It’s like giving yourself a price reduction when you don’t supersize. In case you’re wondering, add-ons count as supersizing too!
3. Only buy what you need. Especially if the only reason for the purchase is it happens to be on sale.
4. Focus on reducing waste, especially food waste. Trashing something is the same as paying more on the front end. Recurring subscriptions that you’re not using are just another form of waste – It’s time to set aside some time to purge through all those online subscriptions and cancel the ones you’re not using.
5. “Easy” costs more. Think twice before you pay a premium for convenience. And Amazon is the master. Make sure the price is right before you click!
6. Check your internet and mobile plans. Maybe you don’t really need the mega unlimited plan. You should check with your carriers now if you haven’t in a while. There’s probably a better deal to be had.

7. Remember, there’s no right price for the wrong thing. So don’t buy something if it’s not right. You can set your own standards, then don’t compromise them.
8. Attach a condition that must occur before you let yourself buy something. I know I won’t build that deck this winter, so I’ll wait until spring to buy materials and tools.
9. Ask, “Where will it go?” If this thing you’re oogling won’t have a place in your home or life, then just say no to buying it.
10. Buy experiences over things, especially this holiday season. And fun experiences are remembered forever. Who gave you those gloves last year?
11. When you do buy things… buy better things. Higher quality products last longer so they’ll serve you longer, then you’ll buy less over time.
12. Vote with your dollars. The collective reaction of voting with your dollars does have an impact! Cast a vote by buying less or stop buying altogether when facing an unreasonable price hike.

I wish we could say that businesses don’t take advantage of economic anomalies like the pandemic. Sometimes we don’t have a choice other than to pay what’s being charged.

But many times, we do. So, put in a little work and do your research. There’s always money to be saved for the savvy consumer.

Some final thoughts on rising prices…

This situation won’t last forever. Much of it is created by our insatiable demand and desire for stuff—most of which we’ll also regret having bought later.

You’ll also hear people claiming that when it comes to prices, what goes up never comes down. This is simply not true. Sure, some prices go up and stay up. Many don’t. It all comes down to market forces.

Until the pendulum swings back the other way, put some extra thought into your spending choices.

One thing you can count on is that at the end of this mess of a situation, you won’t be saying, “I should have bought more stuff!”

Go have some good times instead.

Be untucked.

p.s. Oh! One last thing, if you found this post helpful, be sure to share it with a friend. Use the Share Buttons at the top or the bottom of the post. Thanks, I owe you one.

Copyright © 2022 Jeff Meister – All Rights Reserved