How To Save Money

Nearly everything in your life depends on how you choose to allocate your limited resources: where your children go to college, how soon you can afford a house, or whether you can financially survive a crisis like your car breaking down. What can you do to stave off living in your car next to Lake Michigan, crying silently over a letter that reads, ‘I never loved you’? Well, there are plenty of simple ways you can conserve costs on a daily basis.

First, eating out, while convenient, can be a tremendous financial strain over the long run as restaurant meals are often over 10 times more expensive than home cooked meals. Buying food in bulk or using grocery store coupons can help alleviate costs. If you’re serious about living cheaply, maybe switch to a diet consisting primarily of grains and vegetables, or even supplement your groceries with produce from a small garden on your back porch — water and sunshine are basically free!

Paying off your debt can also drastically increase the money you can save. Paying it off quickly (and judiciously) will reduce the amount of interest you pay and free up money for saving. As a general rule, try not to be indebted to anyone for any reason; it’s why I would never get married or own a dog or make friends — there are financial and/or emotional debts associated with these relationships which cannot be ignored.

Another way to save money is to avoid activities like going to movies, bars, or coffeehouses. All these activities can be done at home for much cheaper: watch movies on Netflix (your parents’ Netflix obviously), buy beer from the store and drink it at home, and make coffee yourself. Sometimes, however, females will insist on these activities as they are components of a social script associated with courtship, but that is why you avoid females, these instigators of fiscal excess. Males will also want to engage in these activities, and so discard them from your life as well. In fact, let the heavy burden of human interaction fall away and leave you with the cold comfortable emptiness you’ve always known and understood. Wrap yourself in the satisfaction of frugality like a blanket made of mummified skin.

Stop showering as showering wastes water and requires the purchase of additional products like shampoo and soap. And if you’re concerned about body odor, don’t worry because it’s best not to go outside anyway due to the presence of so many frivolous spending opportunities. Here’s a little known money saving tip: if you don’t go outside, you don’t have to wear clothes, cutting your clothing budget entirely — forget about those dreary trips to Old Navy or stressful Church donation bin thefts. You’ll be surprised how liberating it feels to wander your apartment naked as God intended, allowing the oils and grime to accumulate on your skin in a thick wet paste, and roll around on your living room floor (sell all your furniture to increase savings), crying tears of joy over your fiscal responsibility. Pure ecstasy.

Utility bills are always a pain, and as a resident Chicagoan, I dread the skyrocketing cost of heat during winter. However, if you’re a savvy saver, it’s easy to circumvent these so-called essential services. Simply peruse the dumpster behind your apartment complex and retrieve all the newspapers, rotten meat, and plastic bags you can find. By filling the bags with shredded newspaper and meat, you can make your own shockingly warm blanket; just pile the bags on top of your body whenever you feel the icy grip of hypothermia pulling your soul from its vessel and enjoy a sensation like you’re body’s sealed in a dead horse’s chest cavity. Easy! Further reduce utility costs by never turning on your lights as a single light bulb can cost over $0.007 per hour (!), and besides, the darkness will hide you from the shadow people.

It’s outrageous how much food Americans waste when so many in the world struggle just to avoid starvation. You can save money and conserve resources for Africa by making more with less during food preparation. For example, try eating cooked rice mixed with dirt from the floor. Geophagy, the practice of eating dirt, actually protects your body from ingested parasites and plant toxins as well as providing valuable minerals like calcium and zinc. It’s why I only eat dirt now. Plus, clean floors!

Now, if you’re thinking, ‘Brad, I’ve run out of floor dirt, so I guess have to go buy expensive organic groceries up at Trader Joe’s now,’ you should think again. Your body is full of a nutrient rich fluid that provides a thirst quenching, stomach filling entrée: blood. It’s always been inside you, unutilized, unexploited, waiting for you to see its true value. And you’re so cold while the blood is so warm. Cut open your belly and drink your blood. Go ahead. Drink it. Drink it all up.

You can also track your expenses using an excel spreadsheet.