New Year, New Money Saving Hacks to Improve Your Finances in 2025

Episode 49: Pocket Change Podcast

Summary

Key Takeaways

• Start with Small, Achievable Goals: Instead of setting overwhelming targets like saving $10,000, begin with manageable goals like saving $10 or $100 per month. As Shea points out, "You can't do any of that unless you start saving $10 or $100 or trying to lose a pound a week."
• Leverage Digital Tools Wisely: While technology can lead to mindless spending, it can also be your ally. Use price-comparison apps for grocery shopping, cashback credit cards, and automated savings apps to your advantage. The hosts recommend the Compass Black credit card, which offers 3%¹ cashback for members with direct deposits.
• Implement the 30-Day Rule: For non-essential purchases over $100, wait 30 days before buying. This cooling-off period helps prevent impulse purchases and naturally reduces unnecessary spending. As Carrie shares from personal experience, many desired purchases lose their appeal during the waiting period.

The episode wraps up with personal reflections from both hosts about their own financial regrets from the previous year and their goals for 2025. From concert splurges to takeout habits, their honest discussion reminds listeners that everyone faces financial challenges – what matters is how we learn and adjust our habits moving forward.

Whether you're looking to strengthen your savings, cut unnecessary expenses, or build better financial habits, this episode of Pocket Change offers practical strategies to help make your 2025 financial resolutions stick.

To learn more about Leaders Credit Union or how to become a member, visit leaderscu.com.

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Full Transcript

Shea:

Welcome to the Pocket Change podcast.

Carrie:

Where you'll learn better ways to spend, save, and invest, and take control of your financial journey.

Shea:

This is exciting. Brand new year.

Carrie:

Yes. Happy New Year!

Shea:

Happy New Year, and to all of our listeners, Happy New Year to them as well. Hope they enjoy the holidays, but we got a lot to talk about as far as resolutions. That's right. Because we all probably make one or more resolutions at this time of the year, and we want to kick off..

Carrie:

And break them, too?

Shea:

We'll talk about that. We want to kick off 2025 with some helpful advice for our listeners.

Carrie:

That's right, but before we get started, we have a little, a little celebration as well.

Shea:

That's right.

Carrie:

The podcast turned two. Hopefully, it's not the terrible twos.

Shea:

Yeah. It's onward and upward from here.

Carrie:

All right, let's get to it. Okay, so today we're going to talk about several fun topics for starting off the new year, starting with the top five New Year's resolutions people give up on.

Shea:

Yeah well, I have. First one, fitness and weight loss, obviously. Yes. Eighty percent of gym memberships that are purchased in January, are unused by February. So don't even make it a month, just about, but I can't tell you, last time I went into a gym, so I probably won't be making that resolution this year.

Carrie:

Because you'll just quit it?

Shea:

Yeah. Why would I give up on it if I can just not do it? Just start without it.

Carrie:

I'm going to actually challenge myself and do the opposite. So I may quit by February, too, but we'll see. Another one is quitting bad habits. Whether it's smoking, excessive drinking, procrastination, behavioral changes require consistent effort most people struggle to maintain.

Shea:

I'm not going to break any habits. I'm just going to continue to not make that resolution, so I won't break that one.

Carrie:

I don't think I'll have issues with that either.

Shea:

I mean, it is something that people try to work on, whatever the case is, smoking, anything, procrastinating, stuff like that. Those are the number two.

Carrie:

I have been the queen of procrastination in my day, but I do feel like as I get older, the more I appreciate being more prepared and having more time to get things accomplished. That might be one I focus on. That's good.

Shea:

Number three is learning a new skill. People may try to learn a new language or all these apps and online courses have all the signups in January. Then, by March, their completion rates are less than 10 percent.

Carrie:

Are you going to learn how to play an instrument this year?

Shea:

I actually know how to play the guitar.

Carrie:

You do?

Shea:

But I haven't picked it up since I was probably in middle school.

Carrie:

Maybe you should pick it up again.

Shea:

Maybe I could relearn this skill.

Carrie:

I don't plan on learning a new skill this year. That just seems like work. Okay, another one is dietary changes. Of course, everyone's always big about, "I'm going to lose weight, put it myself on a strict diet," but that doesn't typically work. It needs to be more attainable, something that is a little bit easier to maintain.

Shea:

I think what people do with all of these, probably, but especially with dietary changes and exercise and also with financial-related resolutions is that we try to make it too hard from the start. Something huge like, "I'm going to lose 50 pounds, or I'm going to run 10 miles, or I'm going to save 10,000 dollars," Well, you can't do any of that unless you start saving $10 or $100 or trying to lose a pound a week.

Carrie:

Be more realistic. Exactly.

Shea:

So that's definitely one of the reasons that most of the resolutions get started and then stopped. But one thing I wanted to say about learning a new skill is that you learned one this past year being a part of the podcast. That's true. You got that one checked off for lucky number three, maybe.

Carrie:

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So the last New Year's resolution that people tend to give up on is saving money, unfortunately, which is easy to give up on because like you just said, sometimes we set too large of a goal and it's hard to obtain. We definitely recommend just start, just start small. It could be $10 a week that you save, maybe skip Starbucks a few times a week.

Shea:

Skip buying all the New Year's necklaces, glasses, and stuff.

Carrie:

Things that's not necessary.

Shea:

Just have a party with friends. You don't have to add all the little extras like that, but that's why we're here to talk about the importance of saving, how we can start and make those incremental changes so that we can make these resolutions last.

Carrie:

That's right. So Let's find out some ways that we can save money to improve our finances in 2025.

Shea:

Number one, we recommend checking out your subscriptions. How many subscriptions do we have? Netflix... I mean, they're probably all streaming. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Prime, all those. All the online subscriptions that are out there.

Carrie:

And apps, too, on your phone. Exactly.

Shea:

Those are coming out every month, and they're just auto-pay, and how many of those do you remember you have or you've forgotten about or aren't using? Take a look at those and see if you haven't used them in the past three months, then get rid of them.

Carrie:

That's right.

Shea:

Hopefully it's easier now to just cancel those and go in and just say, I want to cancel, instead of going through a lot of hoops on how to cancel those subscriptions because they do make it hard sometimes where you have to click 27 buttons just to cancel a subscription.

Carrie:

But it's worth it if you can take the time, all of it adds up. Another way is to gamify your savings. Use your apps that turn saving into a competitive game, like setting up challenges with friends. Then you can see who can save the most or create the most creative budget hack. That sounds fun.

Shea:

I mean, everyone likes a little competition, right? A little friendly competition. If you challenge your friends or your family to save and see who saves the most, I can see that working for a lot of people because they're so competitive.

Carrie:

That's right. I think that's fun.

Shea:

Yeah. Also thinking about the skills that you have. If you are going to learn a new skill and actually stick with that resolution, you can use those skills to maybe earn some extra cash, or create a side hustle where you're creating something or you're doing something as a service that you can charge money for. Doing that, whether it's maybe you do like to exercise and you're able to maybe train others as a personal trainer or graphic designer who maybe can design some things for small businesses on the side. You can use your talents and your creativity to make more money and use that money to help you save more, pay down debt. Just thinking about that, what skills do you have or what skills can you learn? If you're going to take on that challenge?

Carrie:

You can also use those skills to barter. I am a photographer on the side, and so I actually do that along with several other business owner friends, and we just barter our skills, our talents. I have friends that do all several different types of things. So I might take their pictures, and they might do something for me, and we just trade. That's another way to save money because we'd help each other out.

Shea:

Exactly.

Carrie:

Another one, and I really like this, and I'm going to do this for myself, is no spend weekends. So basically, you choose 2-3 weekends per month where you spend...

Carrie:

Two to three? That's like almost a month.

Carrie:

Okay, well, maybe let's start real. Let's start with one weekend a month where we don't spend any money at all. So you get to choose that weekend, and then you turn that into a creative challenge of free entertainment and home cooking. So you got to be prepared. That's where procrastination will not work in your favor. So you got to be prepared.

Shea:

Make sure it's not your birthday month or holiday. Make sure it's outside of those parameters.

Carrie:

Wedding month.

Shea:

I think it's smart. Whether you do a whole weekend, you can start with a no-spend day and just say, This day, I'm not going to go get a coffee, or I'm not going to go out to eat, or I'm not going to go peruse the store and shop. I'm just going to not spend money on this day. Then graduate to a no-spend weekend where you don't spend money for a whole weekend and eat in, watch a movie at home, hang out with your family. It's a good idea.

Carrie:

I mean, there's lots of things that you don't have to stay at home to not spend money. My kids and I go to the park. We go hike and things like that, that is free. You can get creative with that. Another one is the digital minimalism financial cleanse. That's a mouthful. So it says to reduce digital clutter that leads to mindless spending, unsubscribing from marketing emails, delete shopping apps, and create intentional purchase barriers. I have a question for you. Are you one of those that has 10,000 unread emails that show on your counter, or do you hide that number?

Shea:

No. If you are one of those people, you need to make it a resolution this year to delete your emails. Get rid of your notifications. That's ridiculous.

Carrie:

I just hide it, so I don't have to see it, but my email is out of control, so this is a good one for me.

Shea:

If it's unread and it's deleted or it's read and it's deleted, get out of there. I'm not having that, but I think it's true, especially around the holidays and even into the new year with spending. Companies are sending emails and emails of specials and discounts and all the things. Just delete it or unsubscribe, even better. I've done that. I've deleted some apps because I'm not using it, but also don't want to be tempted to just look and see. I need to just do it with Amazon. Just get rid of it. That can be an extra number 11. Delete Amazon from your phone for one month and see you for a week or a day.

Carrie:

Good luck with that. You might last the six weeks like the people working out.

Shea:

Yeah, maybe. That's an easy way to maybe save some because you're not tempted to click on those apps or click on the emails to see what's on sale. Cleanse your tablets, your smartphones from any of those apps or emails that you have. The next suggestion is grocery arbitrage. So use price-matching apps, compare grocery prices, and you might save 20 to 40 percent on your food cost. That's a great way to save money. It takes a little time, but time is money. If you spend this extra time, you may save some money on finding coupons. I mean, Kroger loads the coupons right there. All I have to do is click it and you get the coupons off. Walmart has manufacturer's coupons right in their app. So many easy ways. You can just save a few extra dollars. I know there's other apps like Ibotta and Rokuten and all these other things that you can save money on purchases online or even in the store. So for groceries, for other purchases, take that extra time to look for coupons and apply those to your purchases.

Carrie:

Everything's pretty much digital now, so you don't have to sit and cut coupons on Sunday afternoon like we used to have to do.

Shea:

That would be a resolution that people give up on, trying to cut coupons.

Carrie:

That's right. There's no need for all that. All you do is just click the button. Now, this one I find to be a little challenging because I am a coffee snob, and it's called the Coffee Fund, and it's an investing hack where you calculate daily coffee expenses and automatically invest that exact amount into a high yield savings account or micro-investing app. I think it's a wonderful idea, but I'm being realistic with myself. I might do that, but I would still get my coffee. I'm not sure that that would help me, but I do think that if you could take that extra, I don't know, $20, $30, you might spend a week on that and just put that automatically into your savings. That's a really easy way to save money.

Shea:

$10 a day, 365 days a year, $3,650.

Carrie:

$10?

Shea:

Yeah.

Carrie:

Who are you buying for that’s $10?

Shea:

Well, I mean, if it's coffee or lunch...

Carrie:

It used to be three or four. I know it's a little over five.

Shea:

Maybe it's not coffee, but maybe it's lunch.

Carrie:

$6 or 7 dollars.

Shea:

If you're going out for Chick-fil-A, then save that per day. You put that in high yield or in microinvestment of some sort. Over the years, it adds up.

Carrie:

It does add up. I think it's a great idea. It just requires a lot of self-control.

Shea:

Yeah, that's what all this is about, self-control with our finances. Another suggestion is cashback or rewards. Credit cards oftentimes have cashback, have rewards, and you can utilize those to your benefit. You can use the rewards, bank up the rewards to use for purchases, for travel, those types of things, and you can earn a lot. We've got our Compass Black credit card, and it gives cash back, especially right now, our members are earning 3% cashback if they have direct deposit. Using cards like that where you're going to get extra cashback, if you already have your direct deposit, you have a checking account, it's an easy no-brainer. Use this card, you get 3% cashback on your purchases.

Carrie:

That's right. There's so many benefits to that. You can get flyer miles and free hotel visits. There's lots of benefits to using your cashback or rewards credit cards for those reasons.

Shea:

I mean, earlier this past year around the holidays, just recently, we used our points to pay for our free hotel room. We were traveling for the holidays.

Carrie:

That's great.

Shea:

Makes sense. Just by using those points and cashing in on that, it's really helpful. It saves you a lot.

Carrie:

Here's another one that I actually do myself, just not to this extreme. So I do think that it's manageable. It's the 30-day rule for impulse purchases. Instead of buying it immediately, obviously, wait 30 days before buying any non-essential items that are over $100, most impulse desires will naturally fade, and you can save some money by doing that. I do this myself. I may add it to the Amazon cart, and it may sit there for days, weeks, and then I'll forget about it. There are some regrets that I've definitely had from impulse buying. I definitely think it's wise to just take a moment.

Shea:

I haven't ever heard of the 30 day, but I've heard of 24 hours where you just wait 24 hours before you're making a big purchase. Maybe that's even more than $100, something even bigger than that. I think it's smart. Give it some time. Don't just hit... It's so easy for us to hit the buy now, add to our cart. Take some time. If it's 24 hours, it's a week, 30 days before you're making a big purchase, just take that time to think about it, and it might fade. You may realize you don't really need that item. It can save you some money. Then meal prep, and bulk cooking. So cook large batches of food, put in the freezer, reduce food waste, eliminate expensive last minute take out. I definitely feel this one. It's a lot easier, seemingly easier, to just go pick up food, bring it home. Me and my wife know if we can throw something in the crock pot, we're good. Using those things to save money on takeout is really helpful. And you can make things ahead in a crockpot, too, or baking, whatever, grilling and saving it, putting it in the freezer and using it for later.

Shea:

I've even seen reels and things of meals that they'll make for a crockpot that you put all the ingredients together, but freeze it. Then when you're ready, throw in the crockpot so it saves you time at the beginning and while you're cooking it. So meal prepping definitely can help you save a lot.

Carrie:

It really can. I think it also helps another challenge that you may have is losing weight. If you're not eating out as much and maybe choosing unhealthy food choices, that might kill two birds with one stone. That is a great idea.

Shea:

We're here to help you knock out two resolutions with that.

Carrie:

Exactly.

Shea:

All right, Carrie, so what was one of your biggest money regrets last year? And do you have any goals for this year?

Carrie:

I told you about, or I mentioned, one of my biggest money regrets from this year, and I haven't exactly elaborated on what that is. A friend had some concert tickets come available out of nowhere, and what sounded like a good deal turned into hundreds of dollars because it was in Nashville. You can't go there without spending money. It's not just the concert, travel, the food. That was definitely one of those impulse buys for me that I wish I had paused and thought about a little bit. So that would probably be my biggest money regret for the year. I mean, not that I didn't have a good time. I'm thankful for the memories, minus the blisters on my feet. It was fun, however, I spent a lot of money doing that. So what are one of your biggest money goals for this year?

Shea:

I mean, speaking of concerts, it's not even from this year. It's from like two years ago, but I'm still paying my wife's Taylor Swift concert tickets. No, I'm just kidding. I would say definitely saving. I think I could have set more aside on saving, especially like I mentioned, the takeout. We would have prepared some other times. Of course, we have two kids, and so you're always trying to do stuff for your kids and do the best. So I wish I would have put some more aside for savings. So hopefully in 2025, we can do that.

Carrie:

That's right. Is that your goal for 2025?

Shea:

I'll say that will be my goal for 2025. Save a little more.

Carrie:

I would like to eat out less and save more money on that and do the whole meal prep thing. That really would be beneficial for my pocketbook. If you were to find some extra change in your pocket, what would you spend it on?

Shea:

Oh, I'm getting asked the question. I've always been the one asking it. I think if I had extra pocket change, I would splurge, like we've been saying, if we don't get the coffee or don't go out for ice cream, we would use it, take our kids, go get some ice cream or something like do one of those little fun things and enjoy it.

Carrie:

That's always fun.

Shea:

All right. What would you do if you had any extra pocket change? You're not off the hook.

Carrie:

Both of my kids' birthdays are coming up, so I'd probably spend a little extra on their birthdays.

Shea:

There you go. Good.

Carrie:

All right, well, this has been fun. We hope that everyone's off to a good start for the new year, and maybe you can find some goals or things that you... Maybe you'll learn a new skill this year. I don't know.

Shea:

Hopefully, these tips help our listeners improve their finances in 2025.

Carrie:

We look forward to it.

Disclosures

1. - Earn 3% cash back on all purchases for the first 15 months from the date of account opening. After that, you will earn 2% cash back on all purchases. Offer is only valid for new cards and if member has direct deposit with Leaders. Credit card and direct deposit must be associated with the same membership. See Compass Black page for more details and disclosures.