This guest post is from Empower, the free savings app. Empower has helped more than 250,000 users move beyond living paycheck-to-paycheck by analyzing accounts and identifying opportunities to save. They reviewed a large set of anonymized data to spotlight common places people often leave money on the table. Here are practical, realistic ways to find savings without extreme measures.
If you’re tired of clickbait personal finance pieces that suggest extreme moves, you’re not alone. Practical, everyday strategies can make a meaningful difference — especially with rising living costs, lingering student loans, and wages that don’t always keep pace with expenses. We analyzed patterns from real users to identify six effective tactics that can collectively uncover substantial savings without radically changing your lifestyle.
1. Renegotiate Your Bills
Monthly bills — internet, cable, and cell phone plans — often feel fixed, but many people can lower them by asking or switching. Our data shows those services can add up to more than $3,000 per year for some households. That’s a sizable chunk of money that can be reduced.
Start by totaling your recurring service costs, compare competitors’ offers, and either switch providers or use competing prices to negotiate with your current provider. If you prefer, Empower can assist: among users who leveraged its negotiation features, typical initial savings were around $260, with some users saving as much as $3,000 on setup.
2. Cancel Unwanted Subscriptions
Many subscriptions are small individually but add up fast. Common services include:
- Amazon Prime: roughly $119 per year
- Hulu: about $95.88 per year
- Netflix: Basic similar to Hulu; Standard and Premium cost more
- Spotify Premium: approximately $119.88 per year
Beyond streaming, think about meal-kit services, curated boxes, and premium apps. Examples include meal kits at $8.99–$9.99 per serving, seasonal subscription boxes near $200 per year, and meditation apps ranging from about $95–$156 annually. Sports streaming can also be surprisingly costly: seasonal passes for NFL, MLB, or NBA content range from tens to hundreds of dollars per year depending on coverage.
Many people don’t realize how many active subscriptions they have. Canceling ones you no longer use can reveal hundreds of dollars in annual savings. Empower’s tools can automatically detect recurring subscriptions to make cancellation easier.
3. Put Your Savings Where They Will Grow
Saving is one thing; making your saved money work harder is another. Many traditional savings accounts pay near-zero interest, while high-yield accounts can offer meaningful returns. For example, a high-yield account at 2% annually yields much more than an account paying 0.01%.
To illustrate: if you have $5,000 saved (the approximate average for some age groups), parking it in a 2% account would earn about $100 extra in a year — a substantial improvement over the almost-nonexistent returns of a low-rate account. Look for reputable high-yield options when you move funds from checking to savings.
4. Set Up Automatic Savings
Consistency beats occasional effort. Automating transfers from checking to savings on payday removes the friction and temptation to spend that money. Decide on a monthly amount you can comfortably live without and schedule it to move automatically.
Currently the average American saves about $1,584 per year. If that same person instead saved 10–15% of income, they could accumulate roughly $6,336 annually — an increase of more than $4,700. Automating this amount makes reaching higher savings goals far more achievable.
To set this up, calculate 10–15% of your annual income, divide by 12, and schedule that amount to transfer each pay period. If you can comfortably live without it, the automatic transfer will steadily grow your balance without constant effort.
5. Refinance High-Interest Debt
High-interest debt erodes savings potential. Instead of only focusing on payoff speed, consider lowering the interest rate through refinancing or balance transfers. Lower rates mean reduced total interest paid, lower monthly payments, or a shorter payoff timeline.
Options include:
- Call your credit card issuer to request a lower rate, especially if you have a solid payment history.
- Use a balance transfer card with a promotional 0% APR period to avoid interest while you pay down principal (be mindful of transfer fees and the promo term).
- Consolidate credit card balances with a fixed-rate personal loan to lock in a predictable monthly payment and a lower interest rate.
For example: a hypothetical $10,400 credit card balance at 25% interest could grow to roughly $20,986 over 30 years if only minimum payments are made. Refinancing to a five-year personal loan at 10% could reduce the total paid to about $13,258, eliminating more than $7,700 in interest costs and shortening the payoff period drastically. Evaluate your credit profile and loan offers to find the right approach.
6. Review Your Insurance Plans
Insurance premiums — auto, home, health, and more — are another place where routine review can yield savings. Many people assume insurance prices are fixed, but shopping around and comparing similar coverage levels can lower costs without sacrificing protection.
Insurance marketplaces and comparison tools can surface lower quotes for equivalent coverage. For example, some services report average savings in the hundreds of dollars when users switch or renegotiate policies. Empower can also analyze insurance-related spending as part of a regular review to identify opportunities for lower-cost alternatives.
Automate These Steps to Boost Your Savings Regularly
Effective money management isn’t just about tight budgeting; it’s about reviewing recurring costs and making smarter choices so your income goes further. By applying the examples above — negotiating bills, canceling unused subscriptions, moving money to higher-yield accounts, automating savings, refinancing high-interest debt, and reviewing insurance — it’s possible to identify one-time savings totaling more than $13,000 in some cases. Subscription savings will vary by person, so results differ.
A small investment of time can reveal meaningful savings. If you want help automating these steps, Empower offers tools to analyze accounts, detect recurring charges, and surface negotiation and savings opportunities so you can keep more of your hard-earned money.