Everyone says it: “I really need to spend less money.” But in practice, you don’t want to disrupt your life and feel like you’re compromising your happiness now for a few extra dollars later. Here are some of the best ways that you can trim down spending without feeling like a peasant.

1. Buy Generic

Whenever possible, buy the generic brand of something rather than the popular name-brand item. This covers a wide spectrum: milk, medicine, canned goods, pasta, you name it. Chances are, if there’s a product you buy at a grocery store, there’s going to be a “store brand” version of it right next to it on the shelf at a discount.

If you have an Aldi in your area, I highly recommend shopping there for as many groceries as you can. They don’t have everything, but what they do have is quality and very easy on the wallet. Just remember to bring a quarter for a cart, and bring your own shopping bags from home.

2. Coupons Coupons Coupons

We try to meal-plan and avoid going out to eat as often as we comfortably can. That said, sometimes you can’t beat the luxury of eating food you didn’t have to prepare yourself. But you pay extra for that luxury, and it can add up quickly if you’re not paying attention.

The way we try to balance budget and pleasure in our diet is by looking for any possible coupon or discount that we could apply to what we’re craving. Loyalty programs (in the next section) send emails with coupon codes that can provide great savings. We also get a lot of advertisements and coupons in the mail every month, and those tend to focus on companies in the area, local or otherwise. With the right organization strategy to keep track of expiration dates, coupon clipping can be a rewarding practice, and you might find new restaurants or shops in the area that you wouldn’t have visited otherwise.

3. Loyalty and Rewards Programs

I’m specifically referring to programs that don’t cost any money to join, and don’t require you to apply for their credit card. Plenty of places from grocery stores to department stores have rewards programs. You’ll probably just have to provide a phone number and/or email address, but then you might get reward points/dollars built up over time, and you might even get exclusive deals sent to your inbox.

If you have a specific gas station close to home, check and see if it has a rewards program that will save you some cents per gallon. Most gas stations do!

Once you’ve paid, keep your receipt and use an app like Fetch to get rewards every time you shop. The points add up, and when they do you can get gift cards for Amazon, restaurants, and more. If you download fetch, use this link to get an extra 2,000 points. Fetch is the reward program used by Huggies, so we’re big fans!

4. Wholesale Club Memberships

Paying an annual fee just to get in the door of a place like Costco or Sam’s Club seems like it’s costing you more money to go there. But when you consider all the savings you get every time you shop there, the membership will pay for itself in no time. They are great places to bulk buy toilet paper, paper towels, diapers, coffee, and lots of other things. But you can also find some deeply discounted items that you don’t need to buy in bulk. We bought our sit/stand desks, an office chair, and a futon at Costco for surprisingly good deals.

Even if you never set foot in a Costco or Sam’s, their discounted gas is well worth the price of membership. If all you need is unleaded, you’ll save around 40 cents per gallon filling up at one of these places instead of traditional gas stations.

5. Cut Cable

When we moved into our house, we canceled cable and stuck with just internet. We still got all our local news and a couple of nostalgic rerun channels, and that was good enough for us for a long time. Over the months, that saved us hundreds of dollars, and we didn’t have to deal with cable boxes and figuring out how our new house was wired.

Eventually we decided we were willing to pay for cable quality television (mostly to watch prime-time sports broadcasts and have a DVR library). We compared options and ended up  landing on YouTubeTV. If you’re interested in YouTubeTV, sign up with this link and you’ll get 15% off your first paid month.

6. Don’t Overpay for Mobile

In college, I went through multiple cell phones that frustrated me. It stands to reason that a cell phone with a lower price will cost you less money right? Not always.

If you’re always buying $100 phones that only last a year before breaking down, you just need to spend more money to replace it not too far down the line. But if you watch for deals and find a high quality phone at a price you can afford, that phone will likely last you a long time. Pay more up front to avoid the hassle later.

When I got out of college, I decided I was done with low-quality phones with poor service. I bought the newest phone with the highest quality provider (in my opinion at the time). Buying the newest phone was the right call since it lasted me many years with no issues, but I came to realize I was severely overpaying for the coverage. When my wife and I decided to get on the same phone plan and simultaneously get new phones, I realized how much money was being wasted on my service that (while reliable) was not worth the extra charge.

We switched to Google Fi, and now our combined phone bill is lower than my individual one on my old provider. The service is just as reliable, and we only pay for our two lines along with whatever data we use. We don’t have to pay for a set amount of data and get penalized if we go over. If you want to sign up, use my link and get $20 in Fi credit.

7. DIY, Within Reason

When something around the house breaks, it’s tempting to give up and replace it or call a pro to come fix it. But in a lot of cases, a quick Google search will bring you to a variety of YouTube how-to videos that are exactly what you’re looking for. And if you’re lucky enough to be able to fix it on your own, you’ll save money AND feel very accomplished.

For example, one day our vacuum just decided to stop turning on. It’s a pretty common model, so we googled the problem and found that it’s also a common problem. The power switch just needed to be swapped out, and from the videos we watched, it seemed doable. We would just have to buy a $10 part on Amazon. Out of curiosity, we called a local vacuum repair shop to see what it would cost there, and at their estimate it would have been better to just buy a new vacuum. So we bet on ourselves and got that $10 part from Amazon, and in no time we were vacuuming again as if nothing happened! My wife and I felt very proud of ourselves, and all we had to spend for that feeling was $10 and a little effort.

However, if your gas furnace goes out and you don’t have an HVAC background, don’t go thinking you can handle it all yourself while your family shivers. Some things are best left to trusted professionals, and if they do their job right, they’ll save you money in the long-run anyway. They might be able to do a simple fix and be on their way, and you won’t end up burning your house down or get sent to the ER. Win-win!

• Instagram