15 Ways to Cut $100 From Your Monthly Expenses
Most advice about cutting expenses targets small, frequent, discretionary spending, which is the hardest kind to change and the least of it.
The money is in recurring charges, fees, and bills you are overpaying — things you fix once, that stay fixed, and that you never have to think about again.
Below are fifteen, ordered by effort. The first five are worth roughly an hour in total. Most households will clear $100 a month in the first six.
Under 15 minutes each
1. Cancel subscriptions you are not using — $20 to $60
The highest-yield item on the list. Most people find three to six recurring charges they had forgotten.
Work from twelve months of card statements, then check the Apple and Google app stores and PayPal automatic payments separately, since those hide behind a single statement line. Surveys consistently find that most people underestimate this spending badly — see the subscription economy.
2. Kill duplicate streaming services — $15 to $40
Count how many video services you pay for and how many you watched last month. Most households pay for four or five and use two.
Rotating rather than stacking works better than it sounds: keep one or two, cancel the rest, and re-subscribe for a month when there is something you want.
3. Turn on every autopay and paperless discount — $5 to $20
Internet, mobile, insurance, and utilities frequently offer $5 to $10 a month for autopay or paperless billing, and it is often not applied unless you ask. Five minutes per account.
4. Stop paying bank fees — $12 to $35
Monthly maintenance fees, out-of-network ATM fees, and overdraft fees are all avoidable.
Call and ask for the fee to be waived or the account switched to a no-fee tier. Ask for a refund of recent fees while you are there — first-time reversals are commonly granted. If your bank will not budge, no-fee accounts are widely available.
5. Cancel the equipment rental on your internet — $10 to $15
Renting a modem and router is typically $120 to $180 a year. Buying a compatible modem usually pays for itself within a year. If you are on fibre or a provider-locked gateway, ask for the fee to be waived instead.
An hour or so
6. Negotiate your internet bill — $15 to $40
Call retention, name what a new customer pays at your address, and ask them to match it. This is the single most reliably negotiable bill most households have.
7. Right-size your mobile plan — $15 to $45
Two separate savings: a lower price for the same plan, and a smaller plan that actually matches your usage. Ask the carrier to review your last six months of data use and tell you what tier fits. Most people are paying for far more than they use.
8. Reshop your car and home insurance — $30 to $100
Insurance is the largest routine saving available to most households, because rates drift upward at renewal and loyalty is not rewarded.
Get two or three quotes for identical coverage, then either switch or take the quotes back to your current insurer. Ask specifically about bundling, low-mileage, safety-feature, and claims-free discounts.
9. Raise your insurance deductible — $10 to $30
Moving from a $500 to a $1,000 deductible meaningfully reduces the premium. Only do this if you could actually cover the higher deductible from savings.
10. Get annual fees waived or downgrade the card — $8 to $40
Call and ask for the annual fee to be waived, citing your history. If they refuse, ask to downgrade to a no-fee card in the same family, which usually preserves your account age and avoids the credit impact of closing it.
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Worth a phone call when you have time
11. Review your gym, storage, and monitoring contracts — $15 to $60
Three categories where prices creep and nobody checks: gym memberships, storage units, and home security monitoring. All negotiable, all frequently paying well above the current advertised rate.
12. Audit your utility plan — $10 to $30
In states with retail energy choice, plan rates vary and default rates are rarely the best available. Elsewhere, ask about budget billing, time-of-use plans, and any efficiency rebates you qualify for.
13. Check for unclaimed refunds and credits — variable
Class action settlements, regulator refund programs, and utility or deposit refunds all pay money that people never claim, usually because they never found out about it.
This is not a monthly saving, but it is real money, and it is the part most people skip entirely.
14. Drop add-ons you never chose — $5 to $25
Credit monitoring, extended warranties, roadside assistance duplicated by your card or insurer, phone insurance on a paid-off handset, and "premium support" tiers. Read one full itemised bill line by line for each provider.
15. Switch to an annual plan on things you will definitely keep — $5 to $20
Annual billing is commonly 15% to 20% cheaper than monthly. Only do this for services you are certain about — otherwise you are pre-paying for something you may forget to cancel, which is how this list started.
What the cuts add up to
| Effort level | Typical monthly saving |
|---|---|
| Items 1–5 (about an hour total) | $60–$130 |
| Items 6–10 (a few calls) | $70–$200 |
| Items 11–15 (when you have time) | $35–$135 |
You do not need all fifteen. Most households reach $100 a month within the first six.
The reason these work is that they are one-time actions with permanent effects. You are not trying to change a habit, you are correcting a standing instruction.
Do this once a year
Set a reminder. Prices creep, promotional rates expire, and subscriptions accumulate. An annual pass through this list takes an afternoon and generally finds most of the same money again.
The money you are owed, not just the money you spend
Cutting costs is one half. The other is money you are already owed and have not claimed: settlements from companies that overcharged or misled customers, refunds from regulator enforcement actions, and consumer claims.
Chimo tracks open consumer settlements and helps you file. Filing is included in a membership, and on settlements we take no percentage of what you are paid. Unclaimed property is a separate job with its own state rules: members have those filings included, and without a membership we work on contingency, taking 10% of what is actually recovered and nothing if nothing comes back.
- What is the fastest way to cut monthly expenses?
- Cancel subscriptions you are not using, which takes under an hour and typically finds $20 to $60 a month across three to six forgotten charges. Work from twelve months of card statements and check the app stores and PayPal separately, since those hide behind single statement lines.
- How much can I save by negotiating bills?
- Internet, mobile, and insurance together commonly yield $60 to $185 a month. Insurance is usually the largest single item because rates drift upward at renewal and reshopping for identical coverage often finds $30 to $100 a month.
- Is it worth switching to annual billing to save money?
- Only for services you are certain you will keep, since annual plans are typically 15% to 20% cheaper but pre-pay a full year. For anything you might drop, monthly billing preserves the option to cancel and avoids the forgotten-renewal problem.
- Which bank fees can I actually get refunded?
- Monthly maintenance fees, out-of-network ATM fees, and overdraft fees are all commonly waived or refunded on request, particularly for a first occurrence. Ask for both a refund of recent fees and a switch to a no-fee account tier in the same call.
- Should I raise my insurance deductible to lower my premium?
- Only if you could comfortably pay the higher deductible from savings tomorrow. Moving from $500 to $1,000 reduces the premium meaningfully, but it transfers risk to you, so it is a genuine trade-off rather than a free saving.
- How often should I review my expenses like this?
- Once a year is enough. Prices creep, promotional rates expire, and subscriptions accumulate, so an annual afternoon spent on this list generally recovers most of the same money again.
Related reading
Start with the highest-yield item: how to find and cancel subscriptions you forgot about. Then work through 10 bills you can negotiate and what to say and how to lower your internet bill. If a charge turned out to be one you already canceled, see how to get a refund for a subscription you forgot to cancel.
