Ten ways to ‘manifest’ at least $20.00 each week – They say magic isn’t real… and you can’t ‘manifest’ money but I disagree… I manifest over $1000 a year. Here’s my top 10 ways to save money on every day purchases:

A new year is often a time to make New Year’s resolutions and if yours is to save money or save for a goal then keep reading. I spent the holiday season finding ways to save money, and I’m not talking about ‘don’t buy that café coffee’ or ‘give up smoking’, I’m talking about actually saving money on items you buy every week. The catch with saving is that you have to actually ‘save’ it. So I opened a Loaded for Travel account with Kiwibank and I transfer what I save or manifest into that account after each purchase. It helps keep my savings away from my everyday accounts (and minimises my ability to spend it!).

  1. Chase the petrol savings – get a loyalty card for each of the petrol stations and save 6 – 10 cents per litre on every $40 fill. I only buy $40 gas at a time to maximise the amount of money I can save. On average, on a 10c off day I can save $2.00 on a $40.00 purchase. So at the time of purchase my $40.00 fill costs $38.00 and I transfer $2.00 to my savings account. I spend $80.00 a week on petrol, so on average I save $4.00 every week.
  2. Never buy fruit and vegetables at the supermarket – I have found a local fruit and vege store that sells good quality produce at sometimes half the price of the supermarket. On average I save $6.00 a week on my grocery bill, just by shopping differently.
  3. Turn off your ‘occasional electricals’ at the wall when you have finished using them – have you ever walked around your house in the middle of the night and noticed all those tiny glowing lights coming from your T.V, dishwasher, game consul, computer, microwave and oven? They have zero benefit and are costing you money every night while you sleep! I worked out the cost of having appliances on standby that I only use occasionally, like the T.V., computer, dishwasher, washing machine and microwave, and I save $3.00 a week just by turning these off at the wall when I have finished using them.

And if you are thinking about buying a new appliance, Energywise have a handy calculator to find out how much each appliance will cost per year to run: https://www.energywise.govt.nz/tools/running-costs-calculator/#!/

  1. Get a prescription for bulk paracetamol/Panadol when you are already seeing your local GP. – You are already at the doctors for a different reason, so the consultation isn’t costing you anything extra, and most G.P’s will give you a script for bulk Panadol. The prescription will cost you $5.00 at the chemist but you will get about 100 tablets. They cost $4.20 for a packet of 20 at the supermarket so essentially you will get about 80 tablets for free! And if you have them on hand next time you have a shocking headache you won’t have to make a midnight dash to petrol station after hours and pay even more! I save about 50 cents a week just by buying in bulk.
  2. Start a wot-not container – I have a container at home for the odd screw, nail, washer and stuff … It might sound a little odd but believe me, you will find out like I did that when you need to buy just one small screw you will have to buy a whole packet of small screws – at a cost of $6.49! I checked my wot-not drawer and guess what! I had three small screws in there – just the size I needed! My wot-not container has saved me about $13.00 so far this year so I estimate my savings to be about about 50 cents a week. The trick to this saving is to transfer the amount you would have spent into your savings each time it happens.
  3. Start a Pak’n Save Christmas Club Card – You can pick up a Christmas Club Card from any Pak’n Save and start depositing money into it when you do your weekly shop. You can also transfer funds from your bank account into your Christmas Club Card – another great way to ‘save’ your manifestations (however you can only spend your Christmas Club Card at Pak’n Save). Funds which are added to your Christmas Club Card during any Christmas Club Year are eligible for a bonus, provided you keep the funds in to the end of the Christmas Club Year (30 November of that year). The bonus if spent after 1st December of that year equates to about 5% of your total deposit. See https://www.paknsavechristmas.co.nz/index.php/faqs for actual bonus calculations. I put aside about $400.00 into my Christmas Club Card throughout the year, which manifests a bonus of about $20.00 in December. I manifest about 50 cents a week.
  4. Do a pre-shop at Reduced to Clear – I visit my local reduced to clear store before going supermarket shopping each week. I have set criteria for shopping there. 1. I only buy items that are on my shopping list, or that I will need to purchase in the next 4 weeks. 2. I only buy items that are cheaper than the supermarket price (you can check the price via Countdown Supermarket’s online shopping platform from your phone) and 3. I only buy items I will be able to freeze or use before the expiry date. Buying an item because it is cheap isn’t saving money… it only a saving if you were intending to buy it in the first place from a more expensive store. I save at least $10 a week on items I purchase regularly including bacon, cheese, kid’s school lunch stuff, biscuits, sauces, meat products and of course chocolate… and I transfer the difference, (the Countdown Supermarket price minus the Reduced to Clear price), into my savings account.
  5. Check TradeMe before buying anything new! – Ok… so there are some things you might insist on buying new – like knickers and vacuum cleaners maybe… BUT if you are about to make a purchase for anything from door handles to plunge routers to wide leg pants like I did over the holidays, then check TradeMe or your local op shop first. I have saved hundreds of dollars by buying good quality second hand goods, sometimes in brand new condition for a fraction of the cost of purchasing new. I save at least $5.00 per week by checking TradeMe first.

Trademe bonus – my entire wedding ended up costing $500.00 because I bought everything – from Christmas lights, to artificial camellia flowers, candles and champagne flutes – second hand. Even my wedding dress was second hand – a beautiful Annah Stretton gown (with a whopping brand new price of $1800.00 in their current catalogue) which I bought second hand on TradeMe for $600.00, wore for two hours, dry cleaned and then resold for the same amount. The point here is, check around your home and find items you haven’t used in a while and no longer want, and sell them on TradeMe. Listing on TradeMe is free, and you only pay a commission if the item sells. The commission is 7.9% of the sale price.  I manifest $10.00 a week doing this.

  1. Make your own jams and sauces – I’m not kidding, I make all my jams, marmalades, chutneys and sauces in my bread maker or slow cooker (gone are the days of having to stir a simmering pan over a hot stove for hours – we have new technology). I use free seasonal fruit I grow or collect and the cost of the sugar to make it is miniscule. I used to spend at least $3.00 a week on these products at the supermarket (the husband loves jam) so I save at least $3.00 a week by making my own.
  2. Replace your lightbulbs with LED or energy saving lightbulbs – when your lightbulb blows replace it with an energy saving lightbulb and you could potentially save up to 6 cents a day per lightbulb. The cost of energy saving lightbulbs has reduced dramatically over the years so it is now a very affordable way of saving money every week. I have saved at least $2.00 a week just by changing my 6 most frequently used light bulbs to energy saver bulbs.

If you want to find out more ways to save money then come along to the FREE Becoming Financially Fit ‘101 ways to save and manifest money’ workshop. I guarantee you will learn new ways of saving money and if you actually save what you manifest then you CAN meet your financial goals in 2019. You can register for the FREE course here…https://www.west.org.nz/what-we-do/west-becoming-financially-fit/