Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you try it’s still impossible to find ways to save money? You mean well and try to spend less, but something always comes up. Life gets in the way—the car needs new tires, the teenager needs braces, the house needs a new roof—and just like that, saving money takes a back seat. Sound familiar?

1. Cut down on your grocery budget

Most people—after they make a budget—are shocked to find out how much they’re actually spending at the grocery store each month. And if you’re the average American family of four (with two kids 5 and under), you could be spending around $928! It’s so easy to walk through those aisles, grabbing a bag of Oreos here and a few bags of chips there, and then top it off with the fun goodies at the register. But those little purchases (aka budget busters) add up quite a bit and end up blowing the budget every single month.

2. Monitor your electric bill

Big and small changes in your energy usage can help you save hundreds annually on your electric bill. So you save money, while helping the planet. Things you can do to prevent too much usage of electricity is to turn off the light when you are leaving your room, turn off the tap while brushing your teeth and use less hot water.

3. Waste less food

Almost three quarters of what we throw away in the home is edible, according to recycling charity WRAP. Make a conscious effort to use everything you buy and you'll save a fortune.If you're worried about food safety, remember: ‘use by’ date is the cut-off after which it is not considered safe to eat the food. However, eating food past a ‘best before’ date won't cause any health issues.

4. Have a no-spend day

Exercise some self discipline and try to have at least one no-spend day each week, it'll make you more careful with your cash in the long term. This can be as simple as having last night's leftovers rather than buying lunch out, snacking only from your weekly shop and carrying coffee/tea in a keep cup. Require more than one brew a day? Many chains (including Pret) cut the price of your beverage if you bring a portable mug.

5. Cancel any unused subscriptions

Subscriptions are a money-making dream for a lot of companies. This is because once a customer subscribes to their service, they’re more reluctant to cancel their subscription—even if they hardly ever use it. This, in large part, is due to the sunk-cost fallacy. When applied to a subscription service, the sunk-cost fallacy means that canceling a rarely used subscription is hard, as you’ve already paid so much money for it. Therefore, canceling the subscription would mean accepting that all the money spent on it up until that point has been wasted.