The Iran war has spiked gas prices. The RAM crisis has spiked prices on electronics. A wide swath of imported goods costs more than before due to Trump’s tariffs. Right now, your wallet is likely feeling the squeeze.
It’s a tumultuous time, and the constant media barrage of doom and gloom doesn’t help ease anxieties. It’s also hard to figure out when things will get better, so you’re stuck in a rut of worrying about finances. It’s OK. Take a breath. The first thing to remember, according to “The Budgetnista” Tiffany Aliche, is that the economy is cyclical.
“I’ve lived long enough to see many ‘worst times,’” Aliche says. She’s a financial educator and author of The New York Times Best Seller Get Good with Money. “Well, if it is the worst time, what the hell can I do about it? Sometimes you have to take the apps off your phone. I took Instagram off my phone, and I allow myself to check it on my laptop, which is far less addictive.”
Constrict your doomscrolling so you won’t feel the constant anxieties from the day’s news. Now, how can you actually find ways to conserve and save money? First, look at tightening your spending as much as possible. Aliche says you should analyze your credit card statements and see exactly where your money is going. Is there any wiggle room? Can you cut a few subscriptions to save a few bucks every month? She calls it the ramen noodle budget.
Once you make those adjustments, it’s worth thinking about bigger changes. It might be that those plans never have to come to fruition—like moving in with parents or getting a roommate to save money on housing. “Make the doomsday plan,” she says. “You don’t have to act on it now, but what is that plan if things really get rough, and start having those conversations.”
Sean Pyles, producer and host of NerdWallet’s Smart Money podcast (also a certified financial planner), echoed Aliche’s sentiment of starting with your most recent spending to see where your money is going, and see if it aligns with your values and goals. Do you really need to Uber everywhere? He’s also a fan of keeping a level head and avoiding rash decisions, especially when there’s a lot of volatility in the stock market. Focus on your time horizon instead, and ignore the swings in the market.
“The wiser step is to ignore it as noise and realize that this is someone else’s problem, not mine right now,” he says. “Focus on what you can control. Maybe you have a financial goal to save for a vacation or a wedding, or it is your retirement you’re investing for now—do what you can to make sure you’re on track to meet those goals.”
It’s prudent to build up an emergency fund. Aliche recommends saving up ideally six months of your noodle budget, which you’d typically spend on necessities like rent, mortgage, and utilities. Both Aliche and Pyles suggested automating your finances as much as you can. Set it up so that you have some cash—maybe $100—going into your emergency fund every paycheck. Aliche says you can even ask your employer to split your salary so that it goes into specific accounts, like half of it going into a checking account and the other half going to a high-yield savings account.
Expert Tips on Saving Money
With those budgeting tips in mind, I also asked the writers and editors on WIRED’s Gear and Reviews teams—along with Aliche and Pyles—for ways they save money, whether that’s through specific gear they own or services they use. Hopefully, some of these suggestions can help you save some cash not just now but whenever you’re in a pinch.
Cardmaxxing
“I have been really relying on my credit card points and doing what I can to maximize the points I’ve been earning on everyday purchases. If you have a solid credit card that’s getting a good reward rate for things like going out to eat or taking ride shares, that can actually offset the cost of summer travel, because we’ve seen jet fuel prices go up a lot recently. This might be a great time to cash in the points you have just sitting in your credit card account not being used.” —Sean Pyles
Energy Savings
“I have the Google Thermostat—I travel a lot, so I have the thermostat on my phone. So if I’m not going to be at home, then I’m like, who’s heating the house? I’m not home, I don’t care. To a certain degree, obviously, you don’t want to freeze your pipes. Lean into your thermostat … use smart technology so that you’re not using energy in a way that’s inefficient.” —Tiffany Aliche
Baby Bonanza
My wife and I are both practiced deal hunters, so much so that she was actually excited when I told her I landed her engagement ring from an upscale consignment store. (I got it at half price!) She’s always been the pro to my amateur, but with the addition of our first child, she transitioned to fully operational Deals Terminator, where she zeroed in on a variety of resources to help us land most of our baby stuff for 10 cents on the dollar (or less).
We started by hitting up friends and family, but whatever we couldn’t procure from hand-me-downs has come from a mixture of local consignment stores, sites like Facebook Marketplace and Buy Nothing, Poshmark, and even good old-fashioned eBay. Swap programs like Just Between Friends are another great way to keep your baby clothed, and we’ve kept our library fresh by hitting up used bookstores as well as Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which grants you one free book a month. Virtually everything you buy in these early stages will be gone in a year or two at most. That makes going cheap on essentials a must for keeping costs down. —Ryan Waniata
Free Ride
Back in 2022, I wrote about how Filson’s Dryden Duffle Pack was hands down my favorite gear item ever. Then Filson killed it. The folly of discontinuing what was at the time the best bag in the world wasn’t lost on Huckberry, mind you, who, realizing Filson’s error, collaborated with the brand to bring a version back for its store. Now, finally seeing the error of its ways, Filson has resurrected the peerless Duffle Pack itself.
Why do I tell you this? Well, the money-saving genius of this bag lies in its ability to morph between a hand-carry, standard shoulder duffel, and a rucksack, thanks to two backpack straps cleverly hidden in the base. When I fly, I shun cabin cases in favor of the Duffle Pack, because low-cost, money-grabbing budget airlines increasingly like to charge extra for taking overhead carry-on cases onto a flight. Backpacks are usually free. You can easily fit a week’s worth of clothes, toiletries, tech (yes, there’s even a dedicated 16-inch laptop pocket), adapters, cables, and more into the Duffle Pack’s cavernous 46 liters of space. All you then need to do is waltz onto your flight with the trusty Filson in backpack mode, and you won’t have paid one cent extra. —Jeremy White
Too Good to Go
I’ve gobbled up so many delicious snacks, like artisanal conchas, and hefty dinners, like Mission-style burritos, at a discounted rate by using the Too Good to Go app (Android, iOS). Restaurants and bakers list their unsold food at the end of the day for people to buy through TGTG. While sometimes the portions can be on the smaller end, and you don’t get to pick what you get, the app is a reliable option for cheap, late-night munchies. —Reece Rogers
Buy Used
A user browsing Facebook on a computer in Tunis, Tunisia.Photograph: Imen Ben Youssef/Getty Images
A great deal of furniture in my home was acquired through Facebook Marketplace. Much depends on the area you live in, but you’ll be surprised at just how much stuff people list on there at reasonable prices, and you can usually haggle to get the price a little lower. Be very careful of scams, and always make sure you meet people in public spaces when making purchases. But Facebook Marketplace isn’t the only option for used gear; for big appliances or electronics, I usually check retail stores like Amazon or Best Buy for open-box or used listings, and if nothing comes up, usually I can find the item I want on eBay. I’ve bought several excellent lenses for my Nikon camera, saving hundreds of dollars had I bought new. —Julian Chokkattu
Or Buy Refurbished
Brand new always means paying a premium, but many folks are put off buying used because they don’t want the risk of a scuffed phone or a scammy seller. There is a happy middle ground: Buy refurbished. Go directly to major players like Apple, and you can get decent discounts on MacBooks or iPhones that come packaged like new with a warranty period. Our last two MacBooks were both refurbs from Apple, and they’re as good as new. I dive deeper into this in my guide on How to Buy Refurbished Electronics. —Simon Hill
Freeze Food
If you manage to find large quantities of food on markdown, you’d be surprised at how much you can freeze with little to no loss of flavor or texture. Beyond the usual suspects like meat, butter, and leftovers, I use Souper Cubes trays to portion cut-up fruit and about-to-be-expired sauces and condiments, I vacuum-seal hard cheeses, and I individually wrap baked goods like bread and buns before deep freezing. (As a bonus, freezing actually lowers bread’s glycemic index.) —Kat Merck
Skip the Gas-Guzzling Car
Courtesy of Specialized
Everyone thinks that transitioning away from driving your car (and paying insane gas prices!) means that it has to be all or nothing. This is not true. My rule is that when you can, just substitute one trip per day where you would’ve driven a car with a bike, ebike, scooter, walking, public transit, or carpooling. For me, that means biking my kids to school. For you, that might mean walking to the corner store instead of driving to the market for ketchup, or asking to get picked up on the way to the bar instead of meeting people there. Bonus: You might end up seeing your friends more, too. —Adrienne So
My Friend Libby
I can’t begin to add up the amount of money I’ve saved over the years with my tried and true Kindle + Libby app combo. I’m a big reader, and using Overdrive’s Libby in conjunction with my local library card gets me free and sometimes instant access to a huge variety of ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines. As any regular library user knows, sometimes you have to wait for the most popular titles to become available. The app even has a path to requesting that your library buy a new ebook license for books it might not have. Those resisting the siren call of Amazon’s e-reader can use Libby in conjunction with other devices, too (though that process is a little more complicated), or even choose to read some books natively, right in the app. —Aarian Marshall
You Need a Budget
Courtesy of YNAB
After reading WIRED editor Adrienne So’s story about YNAB, or You Need A Budget, I decided to give the app a go. I was instantly hooked on YNAB’s seemingly straightforward premise. Ideally, you can only spend the money you actually have, so why not plan for the best way to do that? Link YNAB to your bank account and divide your money into any categories you want. Then, every bit of payment and income is tracked and sorted into customized categories that show what you spend money on. It’s both a blessing and a curse to see exactly how much you spend on takeout, but YNAB makes it easy to reallocate those funds, little bits at a time, into something else you want to invest in. Yeah, there’s a yearly fee for the service, but at least the service shows you how to set aside the costs. —Boone Ashworth
Rush Tickets
Just because you’re saving money doesn’t mean you have to sit at home solemnly on the couch every night! You should consider calling your local theater to see what their policy is for night-of, rush tickets. The discount might be even deeper than you expect. Recently, my partner and I had a lovely date night at a theater in San Francisco that was showing a stage adaptation of Paranormal Activity. Spooky! We showed up around an hour before curtain and snagged two $15 tickets, which were originally priced over $100. There are official apps that specialize in these kinds of tickets, like TodayTix for Broadway shows in New York City, but there most likely is an option local to your area if you do some digging. —Reece Rogers
Budget Apparel
Noihsaf Bazaar. What the heck is a Noihsaf? Well, it’s “fashion” spelled backward, of course. But there’s nothing retrograde about this website, which lists gently used apparel, footwear, and decor from independent designers, small shops, and vintage resellers. That’s what makes Noihsaf Bazaar stand out among the Poshmarks and Depops of the used-clothing world. The stuff you’ll find here is, for the most part, unique and interesting and from labels that you haven’t heard of. Sure, you’ll find the occasional Pendleton flannel or Levi’s denim jacket, but the indie vibes always win out. Only the best stuff makes it onto the site, too. Noihsaf’s team of curators vets items before they get listed, and inventory turns over frequently, so shopping here is like stepping into the world’s most well-curated vintage shop. And the deals are often screamin’, with filters to show items that are on sale or listings that are expiring soon. —Michael Calore
Thrifting Fun
Speaking of vintage shops, you would not believe the treasure I find at the thrift store ($200-plus blouses and jeans with tags still on, hello?), which has ruined me forever for buying clothes at retail price. They always need a good clean when they come home, and I buy Blueland laundry detergent tabs in bulk. Bang for buck, no microplastics leeching into our water supply, and the Spring Bloom scent is lovely. —Julia Forbes
Aldi Girl
I’ve always been an Aldi girl, and quite frankly, I don’t understand how anybody can afford to be anything else. Aldi mostly sells private-label groceries with minimal packaging, and it charges for bags and shopping carts (though the latter fee is just a 25-cent deposit). Bring your reusable bag! Shopping there has cut my grocery budget in half. I did join Costco recently, too, for bulk items like protein shakes and energy drinks, and the gas savings from filling my tank there have paid for my membership so far. I also started meal prepping this year, which includes making extra batches of my favorites so I can DoorDash from my freezer instead of my phone. —Louryn Strampe