The more you save, the faster you achieve financial freedom.

Additionally, keeping spare cash on hand allows you to take advantage of opportunities, like buying the dip during a market correction or picking up a high-quality stock that’s gotten irrationally cheap.

Here are seven money-saving tips that go beyond the generic “make coffee at home” or “drive an old car” advice that’s usually regurgitated online.

You can go to Costco or Sam's Club and buy food, soap, toothbrushes, razors, and toilet paper in bulk. This saves money both on the items themselves and on transportation costs from constantly having to run to the store.

However, those aren’t the only things you can buy in bulk.

You can often buy entire lots of books off eBay for pennies per title.

Likewise, Amazon Essentials sells bulk packs of t-shirts and v-necks for around $3 a shirt. A few years back, I took a page from Mark Zuckerberg’s playbook and decided to wear identical shirts every day, bulk-buying black v-necks for a couple bucks each. Like Zuckerberg suggested about his own wardrobe, doing this also saved time and energy in the morning by eliminating the need to decide what to wear.

Complaining about the decline in restaurant quality has become mainstream, as many consumers are beginning to notice just how many restaurants serve wholesale food they didn’t actually make.

The same goes for places where “coffee culture” consists of serving grocery store blends at a 10x markup. You’re not missing much by brewing a cup at home.

Excluding genuinely great restaurants and cafés, you can often make a lot of “restaurant-quality” (by modern restaurant standards, at least) meals at home with very little effort. If you have an air fryer, you can also make no-effort healthy meals in a matter of minutes, eliminating the temptation to order through DoorDash or Uber Eats.

Many years ago, I wanted to buy an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. I bought a similar “homage” watch off AliExpress for $80, saving myself $14,920, which is what Royal Oaks sold for at the time. That homage watch didn’t last a full year, but I got bored of it long before the movement broke.

Before committing to a major purchase, buying a cheap luxury-item homage lets you see whether that item is even congruent with your lifestyle.

Expenses with a positive return are investments.

If you work in sales, wearing expensive clothes and driving an expensive car can be an unspoken job requirement. If you work in finance or Big Law, buying expensive things and splurging on high-end luxuries can be part of the job.

Likewise, many multimillion-dollar social media businesses were built on the back of renting exotic cars or flexing an expensive watch.

Sometimes going big is the prudent choice.

Mindlessly watching television used to be viewed as an absolute bottom-tier activity. Today, Homer Simpson’s TV consumption would look moderate compared to how much time most people spend scrolling Instagram or TikTok.

Pretty much any constructive activity is better than mindlessly scrolling.

Even something as simple as doodling on a piece of paper protects you from the psychic assault of online ragebait and influencer content, not to mention the nonstop onslaught of ads before most YouTube videos.

You can avoid a lot of negative emotions, groupthink, and fear of missing out simply by spending less time consuming content online.

Many gamers have dozens of titles they’ve never played. Likewise, many readers have dozens of books they’ve never read.

Before buying new games or books, finish the ones you already have. If you use Audible or a similar service, pause or cancel your membership until you’ve caught up on the titles you already own.

There’s a scene in Mad Men where Don Draper says that his new car does nothing for him, to which Joan Holloway replies, “It’s because you’re happy—you don’t need it.”

Enjoying what you already have is one of the easiest and fastest ways to cut back on unnecessary expenses and save money.

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Disclaimer: This article is for entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice, always do your own research.