I'm a 'Super Saver.' Here's How I Saved $10K in 6 Months

Back in 2018, I took a sabbatical from full-time work. Dropping down to just my wife's teacher salary was a big financial change for us. (It's sad how underpaid public school teachers are.)

We've always been big savers, so we weren't drowning… But we were operating on a tighter budget than usual.

So we gave ourselves a fun little challenge: To save $10,000 in six months.

There were lots of little things we did to cut back, but these three moves were the biggest needle-movers.

1. We implemented "no spend" weekends and saved $3,500

Looking back into past expenses, I noticed that most of our discretionary spending happened Friday through Sunday. We easily dropped ~$200 or more each weekend on things like brunches, Target runs, spur-of-the-moment date nights, etc.

So we made a conscious effort to fill our weekends with activities that were free (or ridiculously cheap). All the money we saved from these "no spend" weekends went straight into our high-yield savings account.

A few ways we cut back:

• We ate at home before going out. We also packed lunches when headed somewhere for long periods.
• We found free entertainment, like beach days, hikes, bike rides, museum visits. There are so many community events in our city -- we just had to look for them.
• We engaged in zero impulse shopping or spontaneous buys.

This was actually way more fun than we originally thought. We still splurged during the odd weekend here or there. But for the most part, we stuck with it, and ended up saving about $3,500.

2. We travel hacked credit cards and earned $2,500+

During this savings stretch, I kicked my credit card game up a notch. I searched for the best credit card sign-up bonuses available and learned everything I could about the world of maximizing points.

We ended up applying for two travel credit cards that were each offering $1,250 in welcome bonuses at the time. There was a minimum spending requirement to hit, but it was super easy to shift our regular spending (groceries, utilities, insurance, etc.) onto those cards and qualify without spending more than usual.

That one move earned us over $2,500 in free travel. Which we later used for an epic road trip up the west coast!

If you're smart about it, the right credit cards can unlock serious rewards. See this week's top travel cards and find one with a high-value welcome offer!

3. We side hustled and earned about $4,000

Back when electric scooters first hit LA, they were everywhere in our neighborhood. So my wife and I jumped on the trend and started charging them at night. We'd collect a few after dinner, plug them in in the garage, and easily make $50 to $100 a night. It was easy money for a few months.

I also flipped a couple of surfboards and random items on Craigslist. Nothing major, just fun little flips that added a few hundred bucks to our savings account here and there.

All together, our mini side hustles brought in around $4,000 over three to four months.

BTW -- keeping our savings in a separate bank account made it easy to track our progress. We used a high-yield savings account for this kind of challenge because it kept the money out of sight -- and it earned way more interest than our regular checking account.

Being a super saver is actually kind of fun

Sometimes being a super saver means making drastic cutbacks to hit a short-term goal -- like padding your savings account with an extra $10,000 in six months.

Other times, it's about quietly socking away money into your retirement account and letting it grow steadily over decades.

However you go about it, saving doesn't have to feel like a chore. It's really just about being intentional, and finding ways to have fun with it.

That's the real secret.