10 Smart Things You Can Do for $30 to Greatly Improve Your Life

There is a delusion that personal comfort and freedom cost a lot.

The truth is, it does not matter how much you make if you don’t track your expenses and plan finances in the long term. Amy Fontinelle, a financial journalist and personal finance expert, puts it well:

If you aren’t working toward anything specific, you’re likely to spend more than you should. What thinking ahead does is give you a chance to work through things that could happen and do your best to prepare for them.

You will never have enough money to grow your future self because your current self tempts you to spend more as soon as you earn more.

Let’s take 30 dollars as an example. It is not much. Most likely, you don’t even remember how you spent it last time.

Even 30 bucks can make a huge difference if you use it wisely. Here are some smart tips on what you can do with $30 now to transform the way you think and live.

1. Run a Saving Challenge

If you think $30 can’t make a difference, let me prove to you otherwise!

Take a sheet of paper and draw a calendar with 30 days. Next, assign a monetary value from $1 to $30 to each day of the month.

You should get something like this:

Here is what you should do next:

The saving challenge is an easy way to save at least $30 a month if you put aside just $1. What if you save $30 daily? You might end up with up to $900! Quite a good saving, isn’t it?

Many essential topics are not taught at school, including how to handle money wisely. We learn how to work hard and make some money, but we have absolutely no clue what to do next.

Knowledge is your path to freedom and success! 30-day saving challenge is a fun and easy way to make some extra bucks in a month.

2. Form Your Subscription Package

$30 can pay for a humble dinner in a restaurant, a local museum ticket, or a random house attribute. No offense, these are all justified purchases. However, you can also invest this money into self-improvement by forming a monthly subscription package.

Here is my subscription set that costs me under $30 in total:

1. Bookmate mobile reading app with lots of books — $8.99/monthly
2. Journal articles subscription service— $5/monthly
3. Grammarly — $11.66/monthly

Bookmate helps me discover the whole new world of books which I passionately read daily. Various article subscription services have thousands of unique voices. Every time I read a new story, it shapes my perception and helps me become a better self. Besides being an avid reader, I am also an active writer. I would not be able to polish and improve my writing without Grammarly.

Every penny I eagerly spend on my subscriptions returns in the form of new ideas, skills, experience that help me grow personally and financially.

You and only you can decide how to spend $30 in your wallet. You can make a one-time payment and forget about it tomorrow, or you can invest it in yourself and see the higher returns.

3. Open Savings Account With Compound Interest

“Is your money making money?” — this is a question I occasionally ask myself these days. Same as you, I earn money every month, but its future value is less than what it is worth today.

According to the USA’s inflation calculator, if you had $100 in 2011, that would be the equivalent of $119 today. It implies that your earnings have to grow in time to let you save money for big purchases and retire financially secure.

If you save $30 every week ($120 a month) and put your money into the savings account with a compound interest of 6% for ten years — here is what you will get in time:

Even small deposits to a savings account add up over time and can do wonders. You could easily save enough for your kids’ education or your retirement.

Time plays a vital role when it comes to compounding investment. The earlier you start, the more your money would accumulate for you.

I am not an investment guru and do make lots of financial decisions based on my judgment, but if you ask me when is the best time to invest, I would say:

The best time to invest in your future was yesterday!

4. Get a Planner

What is not planned is not done!

Even the most ambitious people fail to crush their goals because they don’t document them. Indeed, it’s much easier to set goals and create a step-by-step monthly plan.

One research study claims you are 42% more likely to stick to your promise if you write it down. This is why many personal growth gurus suggest enhancing your productivity by using planners.

A planner is not just another type of notebook. If used accordingly, it teaches discipline, time management, accountability and helps you see your work's impact.

There are tons of various planners for under $30. The good news, you don’t need a fancy planner to crush your goals. It should serve as a guiding star in the sky, helping you find the right direction and balance in life.

5. Buy Crypto

Despite the fact I am not a crypto expert, I’ve managed to make some money out of buying bitcoins.

When the crypto hype started last year, I invested some bucks into bitcoin. The crypto market is quite volatile, and you never know what to expect. However, I considered it as an experiment. A few months later, bitcoin’s price started to grow crazy, and my modest investment grew five times at least.

Note, cryptocurrency investment is a risky business, and it’s worth getting familiar with the cryptocurrencies and the process before you start investing. I’ve gone through several courses to learn the basics; this one is quite insightful for beginners.

If you wonder what else you might spend your $30 bucks on, you can try to buy some crypto. Your investment can rapidly grow the next day or devalue in time. No one knows. Despite the outcome, you will still gain valuable life lessons:

• Money can make money independently from you.
• You’ll develop a habit to “pay yourself first” before spending money elsewhere.
• You will get some knowledge about cryptocurrency.

6. Start a Website

If I could give advice to myself when I was in my early 20s, I would say this:

“Dear Vicky, don’t rush to become a corporate slave! Instead, explore your motivations and skills.

If you don’t know where to start — try building a website. It will be an insightful journey that might transform into a lifelong endeavor.

The destination is not important, but your transformation along the way, new knowledge, skills, network, and mindset are what matters the most.

Dare to try!”

There are tons of paid and free ways on how to launch a website these days. Despite an extra income source, what is great about building your own digital space is the experience you’ll get along the way. You might end up loving and then working in web design, development, copywriting, SEO, branding fields.

I helped a brand new hospital to move its local business online a year ago. We’ve built a website on Wix with basic functionality for just €75. The website has a few pages, but it attracts customers, and the client is happy!

If you use a content management system with free website templates, your costs could be even less than what I spent! What you will have to pay for, however, is the website hosting. You can check the latest price estimates here.

7. Check Career Talks From People Who Achieved What You Aim to Reach

It’s not mainstream yet, but I’ve stumbled upon enthusiasts who either sell or offer their career path lectures for free.

In an hour or two, people share everything they did to become 6 figure online entrepreneurs, Googlers, instapreneurs, etc. As an example, I’ve stumbled upon the career talk webinar organized by the McMaster University. Experts from various industries bring insights and share their stories on how they advanced their careers and what they learned along the way.

I went even further with my professional growth! I bought a career accelerate lecture for $30 from a senior SMM manager, who worked with world-known brands and recently moved to New York.

There was one specific part of the course I was mainly interested in — the learning curve! It covered what, when, and where she studied to grow from a junior marketer to a senior expert in a few years. I’ve got a bunch of learning materials along with recommended courses.

You might ask why anyone would pay for the knowledge that’s easily accessible online? You are right. The information is extensive, but you never know what’s the actual value of it. I’ve gone through tons of free and paid courses, but only a few of them were worth money and time invested.

Expert advice helps you save precious time, energy, money and allocate these resources into things that truly matter!

8. Buy a Book

“A room without a book is like a body without a soul.“ — Cicero

What makes a good book is different for everyone. Someone likes deep emotional and thought-provoking reads, while others might enjoy light fiction or fantasy. It does not matter as long as you read and believe in the power of reading.

If you want to invest $30 into something timeless, make use of it or gift something special — buy a book!

Books form opinions, impact behavior and allow you to travel without moving feet! Books develop your personality when it seems there is no one around who could be your mentor and guide you through various life circumstances.

I won’t stop buying printed books as long as I still have a place on bookshelves. Every book keeps a memory and a story behind it, which I want to remember when I get older.

9. Help Yourself Live a Longer Life

You are what you eat!

The food you consume ultimately affects your current and future well-being. The good news is adding healthy food to your diet can help you live a longer life! Researchers proved improving your diet by just 20% lowers the risk of premature death by 8–17 %. Isn’t it a motivation?

I want to live a long and happy life, see my kids growing, hold my grandchildren and celebrate my 100th birthday traveling with my husband. It’s my vision of happiness, and I am eager to work on it today. Are you too?

The good news there are plenty of tips on how to live a healthy lifestyle. However, which one should you follow and why?

Why are avocados good for health? Why does intense sugar consumption cause heart attack and obesity? What happens inside our bodies that leads to these adverse consequences?

Forewarned is forearmed!

There is no need to obtain a degree in nutrition if you want to treat your body right. Start with baby steps!

A good friend of mine knows how concerned I am with my diet, so she recommended me a Stanford Introduction to Food and Health course. The course is supposed to reveal what happens with our bodies when we eat different products and how to optimize our daily diet. It is free for seven days, but then I am required to pay $39. There are alternatives as well. All you need is a strong desire to make positive changes in life!

10. Give to Charity

Kindness is another boomerang — the more you bring it into this world, the more you get in return!

Life is like a zebra; it has black and white spots, and you never know which one comes next. When you are down, and it seems there is no way out, remember there are people who need help more than you!

Your small contribution will mean a lot for orphans, kids who need help now. If you come across a donation box for a local food pantry, slip a few banknotes there. Perhaps this small gesture will help some struggling families, and you’ll feel pretty good about doing it too!

Final Thoughts

The right money mindset since childhood is the key to success in the future!

People think they need millions to live happy lives. The truth is, big bucks won’t change anything as long as the mindset remains poor.

In this article, I outlined some tips that drastically helped me improve my living and double my income in 2020. I started small and worked hard to achieve big!

If you aim to crush your goals this year — start with baby steps! When you are making excuses, someone might be making millions.

A dollar saved is more than a dollar earned because you don’t have to pay income tax.” ― Ankala Subbarao