The first penny challenge of 2025 left me with a new haircut and color, some new makeup and fragrance, and more importantly, a few key takeaways on coupons, cash back, bonus cash, and other “get things free to you” efforts. Here they are, applicable for whatever you’re looking to save some money on in 2025 and beyond.
Focus coupons and other efforts to get free things on the things that matter the least, not the most.
There’s a lot on the internet to make one cringe today, and seeing budget living content creators advise going after point program points, cash back offers, bonus cash, and coupons for things that are absolute essentials is certainly one of them. Should the opportunity arise, absolutely take advantage of it, but are you really able to wait until you can accumulate enough cash back, coupons, and points to get dish soap for your kitchen, food for your pet, or your baby’s diapers?
Even if you plan to use them for “wants” only, you’re likely to grow frustrated and just give up on what you wanted if you use something that grows that slowly to get it.
Instead, use those things to get the most trivial things, the littlest things from the “wants not needs” column of your budget, if they even make the budget. As someone who only uses fragrance, hair color, eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick at most, I do not like to pay for cosmetics. Doing the penny challenge taught me that when I want my hair done, I can brush it into shape and cut the sides myself, pay whoever is available at Supercuts $28 to finish the back for me, and then color it myself at home using a box of Revlon hair color from Walgreens for another $8. Since I already like to shop at Walgreens for healthcare items and snacks, I can use my Walgreens cash to get my hair color for free. Supercuts’ own coupon and loyalty program can be combined with programs like MyPoints and Fetch Rewards to earn cash gift cards I can use to pay the remaining balance to make sure the partial cut is free to me. Walgreens cash, My Points, and Fetch Rewards can also make it free to me to replace an eyeliner, mascara, or lipstick when that gets too old or runs out. If that takes a while to accumulate, the worst that can happen is I walk around with my natural color and no makeup for a while. Either way, it frees up spare cash for other things.
Re frame gig work as fundraising, not as a second job or even your own business
According to U.S. tax law, gig work is you running your own business. If the work generates $400 or more in a calendar year, you have to file taxes as an independent contractor, and you have to report the income, no matter what I or any other content creator might write or say to you. It just isn’t likely to be to your benefit to approach it this way in your focus or schedule in 2025 and beyond.
Readers may remember just a few years ago around the time of the lockdown, when gig work in various forms was promoted as the solution to any and all financial ails. During times it was safe to be around others, Uber and Lyft turned your car into a money making machine. If you needed to isolate, all you had to do was sign up to provide “contactless delivery” takeout and grocery shopping and drop off service through Instacart, Uber Eats, Door Dash, and GrubHub. Go back to 2016 to 2019, and online tutoring was tossed into the mix, with anyone and everyone who could do any form of teaching presented with sites like VIPKid and Magic Ears as the only way to succeed in their field.
All of these options still exist in some form, but a more balanced, realistic picture has emerged over recent years. Ride share and delivery app drivers report increasingly stringent rules and policies that do not favor gig workers. Tutoring apps and sites almost always require an advanced degree or teaching certificate, in many cases both. Many sites are hard to get started with, requiring extensive screenings and multiple trainings to even get started. This makes them much less accessible than before, and when you do finally find one you can work with, there are likely to be several other people logged in doing exactly what you’re doing, leaving customers few and far between.
Rather than just giving up, use gig app work strategically. Dedicate time to it when you need the funds, and spend your time doing other things when you don’t. This pervasive belief that you always have to be on, always hustling, always making money is only making money for the corporations that own these gig apps and sites….and for those in the business of treating your stress-related and stress-worsening mental and physical illnesses.
Pinpoint the true goal when making efforts to eliminate or cut the cost of things
My first penny challenge of 2025 was almost ruined by my insistence that I needed to find a way to turn that penny into a $75- $145 or more salon visit for a full service professional cut and color. Then I stepped back and asked myself….what was the real goal? Did I want a salon day? If so, I needed to just keep hustling away to raise more and more funds from that penny. But if what I truly wanted was a different shade of red hair and a trim, there were more cost-effective, and in the case of a penny challenge, more efficient and realistic, ways to get there.
You may realize you truly do want the bigger thing. Had my goal been an afternoon being pampered at a salon, my do two thirds of the haircut and all of the coloring myself method would not have done that. If you want to go to a concert, sitting at home listening to live recordings on your Spotify playlist is not going to be the same. It just isn’t, no matter how hard you try to work to convince yourself that it is. Facetime isn’t an in-person visit with a dear friend, driving out to Turning Stone and back isn’t a trip to Las Vegas, and your house with some white sheets on the bed and your dinner from Uber Eats isn’t a bed and breakfast. Fund raise and save for what you or your family and friends really want to do.
But if you’re planning to go out to an expensive restaurant with a friend when you really just want to catch up, there’s nothing wrong with meeting someplace less pricey, or meeting for coffee, instead of an expensive restaurant. Using a points for gift cards app to get a $15 Amazon card and renting a movie on Prime Video is fine if what you’re after is seeing that particular movie rather than an afternoon at the movies.
Above all, don’t give up or begin berating yourself that you don’t need, or don’t deserve perfectly ordinary treats and little luxuries that do not take anything away from the really important things in life to enjoy or obtain. Instead of thinking, “I can’t afford this, so I can never have it,” ask yourself “What can I do to afford this?” or “How can I fit this into my life?” Even “How can I get this for free?” Or for a penny.
by Jess Santacroce
Writer/editor: The 315
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