This post may contain affiliate links
This post is sponsored by Optum Perks but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.
It’s hard to believe that I have been “laid off” from my job for going on 7 weeks now. The job that, over the years, became my happy place — has been missing from my life for nearly two months. As things have changed rather dramatically for all of us, I’m finding new and inventive ways to pinch pennies.
Saving Money on Essentials Can Be Easy
I made a lot of changes in these last 7 weeks. Surprisingly, most of them were incredibly easy! Here’s what my family is doing to cut down on our every day expenses.
Shop at discount grocery retailers.
Going to the grocery store is unavoidable. For my family, we are making far fewer trips than before — but we’ve also made the decision to use grocers that offer off-brand or discounted groceries like ALDI and Save-a-Lot. We still are getting the same quality fresh foods, produce, and non-perishables, but we’re doing so at a much lower cost.
Cancelling Unnecessary Subscriptions.
There was a time when we had a cable TV subscription, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Honestly, we’ve never had that much time to watch TV. So we have trimmed up our TV subscription services by cancelling our live-television services and picking one of the online streaming services.
This can go for many types of subscriptions like a grocery delivery service, music streaming service, and even beauty boxes.
Using Optum Perks to Save on Prescription Refills.
Prescriptions are another ‘unavoidable’ cost, but there are brilliant ways of saving cash when it comes time to fill or refill! Savings reach up to 80% with no membership and no fees!+
Prescriptions saving is easy. You just search, find, and save without ever having to enter personal information or data in. Optum Perks can be used at over 64,000 pharmacies nationwide, including Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS. Once you find the prescription and pricing, you can decide if you’d like the free coupon to be delivered by text, email, or by printing it out.
These prescription coupons can be presented to your pharmacist whichever way is convenient for you. So whether you’re using the drive-thru or picking it up in-store, your pharmacy coupon will be honored. Truly. That’s it.
I’ve been really open about my struggles with mental health, particularly since having children. As many know, I’ve relied mostly on my Lexapro prescription for the last 5 years. Usually my refills cost upwards of $20. By using Optum Perks I’ve been able to fill it at the rate of $9.00! That’s an eleven dollar savings! While it may not seem like a lot, with a family of 5, every bit helps.
You can see for yourself by heading to Optum Perks today and finding out just how much you can be saving on the prescriptions you need for the whole family.
Putting Memberships on Hold.
If you look at the number of items that are auto-deducted from your account each month, what would you see? For me, it’s our family gym membership, zoo membership, and my auto-renew of my coffee card. While these memberships are handy and even affordable in times of employment, they can be detrimental to savings when going through financial hardship.
Most memberships will allow a ‘hold’ or ‘break’ for anywhere from one to 6-months. And it’s usually as simple as giving them a call or shooting their customer service team an email.
These Adjustments Do Not Have To Be Permanent
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned in these last couple of months it’s that I am capable of much more than I previously thought I was. I’m the same girl who would grab coffee from Starbucks before work almost every day. But I don’t have to be. In fact, I’m amazed at how these small changes I’ve made in our spending have had such a tremendous impact on not only our pocketbooks, but our overall psychological well-being.
But knowing that at least some of what I’m doing right now is just temporary certainly helps. I may not stay away from my beloved coffee forever, but I can tell you that I will never go back to paying full-price for my prescriptions.
+Prices are subject to change over time
Tell me — what will you do with all of the money you save using Optum Perks?
These are all great tips. I cancelled my Amazon Music subscription recently to save myself a bit of money. And I can still find plenty of ‘free’ songs on there to listen to. I might cancel Netflix for a while as well as we’ve not been watching it as much as I thought we would lately!
Louise x
These are all great tips! I can really work on canceling some of my unnecessary subscriptions. I have too many! 😆
These are great ways to help with the budget during these difficult times.
I think cancelling unnecessary reminders is a great reminder, because I usually forget that I’m still subscribed to this and that, so that’d save me a lot of money.
It was perfect the first time. I learn so much from you as well! Keep it up great post.
These are all such great tips! I am horrible at cancelling subscriptions, especially when I’ve signed up for free trials not meaning to pay. I usually end up at least owing a month and it starts to add up. I’ve finally stopped signing up for most trials.
I’ve never heard of Optum perks before, I will check it out right away, i am all about saving money now.
Great tip. Thanks for sharing. So many don’t believe saving money is easy especially on little things.
I agree with all these. Especially with taking out the unnecessary subscriptions.
I’m pretty bad at keeping money because I tends to overspend. I’m learning to save though because I know it’s essential. It’s difficult but it’s possible
I like your tips. They are practical. I will be doing some of these in the near future.
We actually canceled Netflix a month ago but reinstated it again because I missed it 🙂
Great tips……. it was so helpful….. we should save our money for our future….. awesome tips thanks for sharing.
Knowledge is power they say, i have not really had of optum perks before now but its worth checking out.
Great ideas and so timely! I’m always looking for ways to save, even when we’re not quarantined and in a recession.
I am definitely looking to save. I have been learning to make more homemade items too.
Saving money is so important nowadays and SHOP AT DISCOUNT GROCERY RETAILERS. I’ve always collect the coupons for having discount and this is one of the great effective about saving money.
Such Great tips! Yes those sneaky subscriptions can be forgotten about!!
Thank you very much .
These are amazing tips.we need to save for we do not know what awaits us in months to come.
Great ideas to save money. We can all use extra cash these days.
I’m all about saving money right now and these tips are really helpful. Every little amount saved is important.
I’m not very good with money. But lately I’m working on that. I’ve cancelled all the extra spendings that are not needs and reduced some too.
That’s a great start!