40 Great Ways to Save Money in India

I always believe saving money is equal to making money & I practiced many of these saving tips. Here I am going to show you the ways to save money in India which makes real sense in the real world. These tips can be useful to anyone who wants to save money in India and especially to Students, Job Holders, People who are searching for jobs and who want to start a new business.

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Generally, when people talk about Saving Money, there comes a lot of compromises and say that don’t buy this and don’t spend on that, etc. But actually, you don’t need to do so, you can use these techniques below and get equal results without any big compromises

So, Let’s Dive in

40 Great Ways to Save Money in India

Firstly I like to clarify that, all these ways may not be your cup of coffee if you feel you cannot do such a thing to save money, you can absolutely leave them. But make sure your reason is good enough and strong. Apart from that, try to use each and every technique possible which combines and make really good savings at the end of every month.

1. Start Online Shopping Using Cashback Programs

Normally, things are cheap online than outside. They also have offers, deals & Cashbacks sometimes where we can get for even more cheap price. So online shopping is the best way to go with.

But still, there is another way you can save money from shopping online.

There are some websites like CouponDunia, CashKaro, etc which gives you cash back for shopping online on your favorite sites every time.

If I need to buy something on Amazon, I go to CouponDunia or CashKaro & select Amazon. Here it’s saying that I can get a 5.5% rewards back.

After selecting, It will redirect me to Amazon.

Now if I ordered something, I can get a 5.5% Cashback on CashKaro. I can redeem them or use them to buy some other things online.

If I ordered a phone which costs around Rs 20,000. I can get a cashback of Rs 1,000. And you know how much saving Rs 1,000 without any compromise means.

2. Go Shopping with a List in your Hand

We don’t spend great when we go to shopping malls or supermarkets. Other things are soo attractive even more than the necessary ones. And we can’t control without buying them. Moreover, we feel like we are there to buy that.

But going out with a list in your hand may stop you from buying those unnecessary things. Definitely, they will attract even now, but we have that urge to not buy anything apart from the list. This may not look like a great saving technique but when using it, it showed me a real difference.

3. Avoid “Buy 3 Get”1 kind of Deals

Now don’t get angry at me for saying everything relating to shopping. I feel most of us spend a lot on unuseful while shopping. And these “buy 3 get 1” type of deals are one of the superior among them.

Firstly, they normally sell each product for more price. So when you buy 3 you have almost paid for the 4th one and that’s not free. So you have just spent more money on buying 4 instead of 1. Secondly, they use these techniques to clear their old stock. So you have brought 4 products which are in old stock for more price. And that summarizes everything why these kind of deals are not great to buy.

4. Start Advance Booking for Travel

If you are in living in India, you might have already known about how our railways, busses & airlines are always busy. And if you are late, there may be no tickets left for you. Or you can get offers like buying the same ticket for the double price which is sick. Or you may need to buy in Thatkal which is not at all a good idea.

Generally, the price of the ticket rises when the travel day comes closer.

So if you can plan your travel before, then that’s soo much better to buy them in advance many days before. At least book before 1- 2 weeks before the travel. That way you can leave all the pain of spending more money on travel and also you don’t need to be worried about the availability.

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5. Keep Money in multiple places to stop from theft

Normally when I am going outside or while traveling, my father used to say that, keep your money in multiple pockets, bags, etc. Don’t keep everything in one purse.

This may not be helpful in day to day life but when anyone steals your purse or something, you can get back to your place as you kept money in multiple places. Moreover, you will be saving a lot of money even after the theft happens. Anyhow keeping everything safe is good but sometimes things may happen without our control.

6. Break Smoking and other Addiction Habits

Firstly, they were not good partners for our health. Moreover, they are great reasons for many people to spend a lot of money.

If you have these habits, even you might have already felt that you are spending a lot on them. If you can’t, trying to reduce these habits is better than the worse.

7. Make a Monthly Budget Plan

Somethings cannot be done without a plan, unfortunately saving money is on that list.

Monthly budget planning may be a bit boring to do. But among all of these tips, budget planning stands out to be one of the best ways to save money.

You may need to spend one month tracking all your expenses from current bills to daily random expenses. By the end of the month, you can get a better idea of where you are wasting a lot of money. Depending upon its importance you can make a budget plan.

Apps like —- will be useful to track your expenses and also maintain a perfect budget plan.

8. Get monthly Bus Pass, if you need to travel everyday

If you are the one who needs to travel every day like to college, office, school or something. Getting a monthly bus pass may be the best option for you.

Even though most of us know this, we don’t do as we are so much comfortable with autos, cabs, etc. But after getting a pass you can see how much amount you can save every month.

9. Prefer buying in 2nd Hard

Services like OLX made easy to buy second-hand stuff. Needless to say, there is a lot of difference in price comparing to first hand. If there is something you don’t worry about buying something in the second hand, you should definitely check out OLX.

The only down-side is, you need to check twice and thrice before buying in OLX. But mostly, you will find products which work absolutely fine.

Stuff like Textbooks etc is great to buy in second hand in second-hand markets.

10. Learn to Bargain

This is something each and everyone who wants to save money should know. Buying something is definitely not a place to show shy. You need to ask for how much as you can.

Never ever buy anything at the price they say. Always try to bargain even few rupees. They really add up and make great savings.

11. Share Vehicles, use public transport or walk

If you and your friend decided to save money. Then you both can share vehicle and petrol rates. So both can save a lot of money on petrol. This is popularly known as carpooling.

Or use public transport which costs so less compared to cabs and private vehicles. If it is a small distance, cover that in walking.

12. Get a Cheap Hostel or Room

While studying or doing a job, you need to be in a hostel or room. If you search for some cheap hostel or room, you may end up saving a significant amount every month.

Also trying to get a room which is so much near to your work is better as you can save money on travel. Considering both to take a room is even better.

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13. Share Membership Accounts like Amazon Prize, Netflix, etc with your Friends.

When services like these offer you to use in multiple devices, you can absolutely share with your friends and family. This is something already many people doing right now. If you are using any of these services or willing to get one, then try to share with your friends or pay your friend and share his account.

14. Wait for Big Billion Days, Great Indian Sales, Festival Sales, Back-to-School Sales to buy online

In India, we have many festivals and we have a high number of chances to get more offers for festivals. When you are buying any product which costs more, it’s better to wait sometime and check whether you can get offers on that product for any festival.

Flipkart and Amazon have Big Billion Days & Great Indian Sales. Where you can get amazing offers. If your desired product also has an offer, then it definitely worth your wait.

There is a moment which I cannot forget, Years back I ordered a Blackberry phone ( Just because I am interested in design ) for Rs 29,000. 2 days after that, I logged into Flipkart to review 5 stars for the product I received. As Diwali offers started, I saw the same phone for just Rs 22,000. And I am not in a mood to give a 5-star rating.

I would have saved Rs 7,000 if I have waited 2 days for Diwali offers. So, if there are any festivals nearby, or there are any announcements for Big Billion days, I suggest you wait for a while.

15. Start Comparision Shopping

Luckily, we have many E-commerce sites in India where we can buy products. So, I took some time to check the price in other E-commerce sites. It just takes a few minutes of work, but I had 90% chances to get the same product in other sites for a much cheaper price.

Actually, you need to open every single site and search for products.

There are some sites like My Smart Price, Phonecurry which compare the price of the product with some famous sites and shows the best price you can get.

Try searching these sites, so you may end up even saving thousands. I bookmarked mysmartprice.com and junglee.com sites, and they always come in handy while shopping.

16. Pay bills, Credit, EMI’s on Time

There is no problem in getting credits and EMI’s as you need money right away. But missing to pay will increases taxes and hence a lot of wastage of money. In such cases, try to not take credits and wait for a while to do anything.

The amount you spent as a tax for late payment will be huge and not a person who wants to save money should do.

17. Get notified about latest deals

We can’t check deals every day, & you may miss many deals for products you like to buy. You may miss daily offers, the festival offers, Big billion days, etc.

I follow a Twitter account called TechGlare Deals, they provide best offers and notify you about the latest deals, offers and big billion days.  Recently they also created a website providing the latest offers: Techglaredeals.com

Check out their success story here

18. Don’t Buy anything just because it has a good deal

More than suggesting sites which give cash back, I feel some suggestion like this may save you more money than that. This all comes from my personal experience.

One of my friends once offered a helmet which is in an offer for just Rs 199/-. Since then he is rocking that helmet till now. I obey that’s really a good deal and good product too. But he already had a helmet which is in even better quality and most importantly, his old helmet is in yellow color which is his favorite. I felt like, he is just using the new one just because he got it. Anyhow, the old premium yellow color helmet went under the sofa and never came back.

Though it may be a good deal, Just don’t buy it, if you don’t really need it.

19. Ensure Minimum Balance in Bank Account

Normally banks cut the money from your account when you don’t maintain a minimum balance. So always ensure that you are maintaining more than the minimum balance.

Don’t ever withdraw that cash unless that’s too important.

20. Time Management

Great people say that Time = Money. I don’t know whether it’s true or not. But what can I say when you were inconsistent with time and need to do in the last minute. You often take decisions which are expensive because you had no time.

For example, you will choose cabs, etc when you are late. But when you are on time, you can opt for a cheap transport service like busses. So time management will definitely save a lot of money and stop your expensive spendings when you are late.

21. Avoid Food Wastage

If we need to save money, we don’t need to waste. That’s something we all know. But coming to food, mostly we don’t bother about it.

So I feel keeping this in the list is worth mentioning. Every time you waste food, you are also wasting your money and that matters a lot.

22. Get Scholarship Education

Money Saving comes at every place. Saving a lot of money with a lot of hard work will be totally useless if we spent a lot in one place. And Education is something costly and demands a lot of money. You can only decrease the price of education only by scholarships.

Know about how much you need to get to avail scholarship. Keep even high target than required. And just this one technique may save thousands and thousands of rupees.

23. Prefer Homemade Food

No matter where you eat outside, you could make it for much cheaper at your home and even healthier. Keeping the fact that home food is healthy aside. It has its advantages coming to price.

Some people prefer eating outside at canteen, hotels or online services like Swiggy for lunch. As getting food from home daily is a bit of a hectic task. But once you start only preferring homemade food. You can get a better idea of how much you gonna to save every month. The only downside is the process to make your own food.

24. Don’t Compromise on Health

If you are planning to save money, that doesn’t mean to compromise something. And definitely not about health. No matter how much you need money, health is not the way to go and even it is not even a good money-saving technique, you may need to spend that money on medications for what you have done.

25. Use Family Packs

Opting for any service or mobile plans, there are family packs in almost any of them. If everyone needs the service, you can opt for a family pack and save a lot more than you can expect.

Plus using the same service also helps for better integration as this mobile network service gives you more offers when you talk with another person who is using the same service.

26. Be a daily customer to a single store.

I don’t need to say this. But this is one of the best ways to save money. When you getting groceries or something from the store beside your place, try to buy always from the same store. At a point of time, they may give you for a more cheaper price as you are his daily customer.

27. Delegate Chores

When thinking about saving money, you need to make a bit of hard work for that. And 1 amoung that is delegate chores. Don’t use maids to clean your house, clothes, etc. Take that bit of effort on your back and save thousands every month.

This may be the hardest money saving technique but when you need it you can use this.

28. Dispose of Junk Wisely

Don’t waste the junk like papers, bottles, plastic and metal waste by throwing in the dustbin. They may not worth gold but worth a really good amount of money.

You could easily make around Rs 300 by selling this kind of waste each and every month.

29. Check for Coupon codes

Some shopping sites accept coupon codes. You can apply these coupon codes on check out and get amazing discounts. As coupons expire soon, even Google can’t help you much.

There come sites like Coupondunia.in, couponraja.com which gives you coupons for many E-commerce sites. Just sign in to them and search for the site for which you want coupons.

You can get all the latest coupons available.

I just showed you 2 coupons with concern to space, but you can find even more than this on that site. Moreover, you can also find some latest deals, so you can buy products online before the offer completes.

You can also add a chrome extension called Honey, which helps you to give coupons while checkout. All you need to is shop online normally. In the checkout page, where you need to add the coupon code, Honey extension will pop up and shows how many coupons are available with it.

You just need to click on apply coupons and Honey will add the best coupon available for the product you are buying.

Some sites give conditions like you can apply this coupon only when you purchase RS 400 plus. But with honey you don’t need to even think about them, Honey checks all their terms and conditions and give you the best Coupon where you can save more money.

This is how I am saving using Honey.

30. Use Subscribe & Save Option to buy monthly groceries

Amazon has a feature called Subscribe and save, where you can buy monthly groceries without any hassle. And you can also get 5 – 10% discount with free delivery

If you just don’t need the product to deliver this month, you can skip and continue subscription from the next month. Here are some benefits to subscribe & share. 

31. Use Free ATM’s

Some of us had a habit of not caring on which ATM we are drawing money from. But unfortunately, that matters a bit. Use only your banks ATM as they don’t fine you extra changes for you. But when you use some other bank’s ATM, some amount in your account will get reduced as a charge for your withdrawal.

The charges depend on the amount you withdraw. I lost Rs 300 one month when I used to don’t care about any of this. But after using the correct ATM, I have come to know how much money I have been wasting for no proper use.

32. Opt for inexpensive entertainment

Entertainment is a must and should for everyone. But sometimes it may be so much expensive these days due to multiplexes and fancy restaurants.

You can get the same kind of enjoyment for a much low price. You just need to go to a good A/C theatre instead of the multiplex. Go to a restaurant which has a good name instead of good lightings.

33. Keep track of lending/Borrowing

Being as a student is not possible without lending and borrowing with friends. But I used to often forget about it and lost a lot of money. Even though I remember, I have not asked as they were my college mates.

But later I realized that’s so wrong and there is no problem asking back when you give him as a help. You may be not like me, but if you are, I think you need to rethink about this.

34. Separate Wants from Needs

I guess you have understood everything from the heading above. Some people don’t understand the difference between need and comfort.

They spend more money on something which they can happily live without it. Sometimes they use it just because they got it. I could not say what comes to needs and what comes to wants for you. But you need to really make a wise decision here.

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35. Take Advantage of Student Discounts

Students often have advantages called student discounts in many places. You can get discounts while buying online, traveling or even buying a ticket to any amusement parks, etc.

You need to carry your Student ID to every place where you go and also check whether they have any student discounts while buying online. You can end up saving 30% +

36. Resist Peer Pressure

Peer pressure may be one of the best reasons why many people spend a lot of money on unnecessary things. When your friend or someone gets something like a bike or a branded phone. You may feel you also need it to maintain your stage.

But unfortunately, by buying it you lose a lot of money just to prove yourself to someone. If you are willing to save money for a brighter future you need to invest this kind of saved money on lands, gold, stock or investment for a business. That way you can be in a position to not save money for these small things.

37. Use Credit Cards if Possible

The most common myth is, don’t use credit cards if you want to save money. I agree using credit is not good when you don’t pay on time. If you are not sure whether you can pay or not, then don’t ever look at a credit card as you may need to pay a lot of tax if you miss out.

But if you are sure about paying the money back, then credit cards may be your perfect partners. You get many offers online while buying when using credit cards. The cashback programs and discounts can save you thousands every month.

You can see this kind of offers like

Get 0% EMI on HDSC Credit cards & 

There are definitely more offers when using credit cards. All you need to know when using credit cards is controlling to not spend more, that’s simple

38. Prefer Quality than Branded

This is one of common ideology problem. We feel that, when we use branded stuff, we get more quality. That may be true to some extent but only branded items are not giving the quality we need.

I don’t ever encourage to buy cheap products as they get useless fastly. But you can find better quality products even though they don’t have a great brand image. These may be the companies which are trying to be a brand in future. So they offer better quality at a cheaper price.

39. Sell old Items you don’t use anymore

Previous I have said, buying stuff in second-hand saves a lot of money. But you can use the same platform to earn money with no effort.

If you have something in your home that you don’t use, then take a photo and sell that on OLX. But never ever try to sell something which you need. As said before saving money can be done with hard work but not with compromises.

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40. Check whether the product can decrease its price in the future when shopping Online

BuyHatke is another great extension which offers deals, coupons blah blah blah.

But it has some more features which are really useful. That is price alerts, price comparison, and estimation of the price. Once you installed the extension, you get a sidebar when you enter into a site which is supported by BuyHatke.

You can check coupons and deals over there. But when you enter into any product page, you get extra 2 options

In the price graph, you can check the price of that product in the past and it also estimates whether the price will drop or not.

So we have a 35% chance of price drop in a week. If the percent is above 70 %, it’s better to wait. You can also set a price drop alert by clicking on the second option.

Enter your email address and click on submit, you will get an email when there is a price drop.

And finally, the third useful feature of BuyHatke is price comparison. If you are in Amazon, If the price of your desired phone is 60K. BuyHatke gives you a topbar, where you can compare prices from famous E-commerce sites. So, I came to know that shopclues is offering for the even lower price.

Looks like BuyHatke is the best partner for shopping online