This article is not for beginners. It’s not for those just thinking about purchasing their first property in pursuit of financial independence. It’s for those who are ready, willing, and able to take their life in their own hands. It’s for those ready to seriously start making serious strides towards saving ~$20,000 to get that down payment for a first property.

If you aren’t one of the lollygaggers, if there is absolutely nothing that is going to stand in between you and freedom, this article is for you.

In this post, I am going to describe some extreme budgeting techniques that some of my friends and I have used to save a significant amount of money, allowing us to quickly jump into this real estate game!

Full disclosure: Some of these are extremely affective, while others may seem completely outlandish. I suggest giving them a shot before shutting them down.

Here it goes.

The rent hack is house hacking before you have the means to house hack. What you do here is you find a 2-5 bedroom apartment or house that you can rent. You rent the entire thing from the landlord and turn around and rent it by the room (or Airbnb it) to other people such that they are covering your full rent payment.

For example, you find a 3-bedroom house for $1,200 on Craigslist. You rent out the entire place from the landlord for $1,200 and then rent out each of the other two bedrooms for $600 each. That way, you are collecting a total of $1,200 from your roommates, paying your landlord $1,200, and effectively living for free. The more bedrooms you rent out, the higher likelihood that you will bring in money from your living situation.

Ideally, the house or apartment that you find is within walking or biking distance to work. That way you eliminate your need for a car. If you don’t have a car, that’s great! Let’s keep it that way.

If you do have a car and don’t want to get rid of it, then you can rent it out on this site called Turo. People coming into town will borrow your car for a few days and will pay you to use it while you go about your day normally.

This is a very good way to transition your car from a “liability” that takes money out of your pocket to an “asset” that puts money in your pocket.

Food is another large expense for many Americans. One of the reasons this is the case is because we so frequently go out to eat where the meals are three times as much. No thanks!

If you want to save in the food department, you need to start making the grocery store a place you frequent. However, grocery stores can be dangerous too! There are a lot of things that are tempting but that you don’t need. Stay strong!

A BiggerPockets user recommended the Mealime app to me. I started using it and it’s great! You can pick what you want to eat, and the app automatically populates the ingredients for you. When you go into the grocery store, ONLY get what is on the list. Once you start to stray from your list, your money starts to stray from your bank account.

I know, I know. That’s really not all that extreme, but I really like it so I wanted to give it a shoutout. Here are some of the extreme tips:

Costco is one of the greatest places in the world to buy in bulk. You don’t need to buy your meat or produce at Costco if you don’t like eating the same thing for a week (though I do it). I’m talking about all non-perishable items: toilet paper, toothpaste, oatmeal, canned goods, etc. Buy these items in bulk ,and you’ll save hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars over the course of the year.

If you’re vegetarian, this won’t be too hard for you. However, if meat is the staple of your every meal, there is likely some slimming down you can do (pun intended). Meat is 30%-40% of the average person’s grocery bill. Only eat meat for one meal each day, and you’ll be saving 15%-20% of your total grocery bill AND you won’t get that mid-afternoon groggy feeling. Win-win!

This is something I hadn’t heard of until about 20 minutes before writing this article. Apparently, in almost every grocery store there is an aisle where all of the damaged cans and boxes go. Here, you can pick up cans and boxes for a fraction of the price of the ones that are in “new” condition. The contents on the inside are exactly the same—they just may not look as nice in your cabinets. Unless you’re going to be on MTV Cribs (is that show still on?), I would suggest making a habit of perusing this aisle. I know I’m going to!

Hopefully, you have taken my advice and are (or will be) biking to work. There is a good portion of your exercise right there. If that’s not enough (it’s not for me), I would suggest Convict Conditioning.

Look up the program. I believe there is a PDF version for free online. If not, there are a bunch of YouTube videos around it.

This is the area that might get the most push back. These are extreme, fun—albeit less impactful—ways to save money, but they do work!

Let’s talk about saving on utilities:

This is when you only use the water in your shower for functional purposes, to get yourself wet before you lather up and right after to rinse yourself off. For 90 percent of the time, your water is off and you are just washing yourself.

In this same category is making sure you shut your water off while you are brushing your teeth, shaving, and performing all other idle sink-side activities.

Get a two-liter bottle, put a few rocks in it, fill it with water, and place it in the back of your toilet tank. By doing this, your toilet will need less water to fill the tank, and therefore less water will be flushed. If a two-liter bottle is too big, try a one-liter bottle.

This is self-explanatory. It’s no secret that your dryer uses a whole lot of utilities. I’d recommend getting a clothes rack, and if it’s a nice day, hang dry your clothes. Depending on where you live, it may only take two or three hours to complete.

When your electronics lie idly but are plugged in, they are still using electricity. If you aren’t using your TV, appliances, and other electronic devices, unplug them! You’ll save quite a bit of electricity this way.

Look at the size of most of the things that you wash. I would bet that in most cases you do not need the ENTIRE sponge. Why not cut them in half or even thirds to make them last two or three times as long?

Now that your sponges are cut in half, I would bet that they can fit in a small bowl beside your sink. Fill that bowl with soap and water, and put the sponge in there. That way, you are saving water and saving soap all at the same time!

There it is—some extreme ways you can save to expedite the time towards your next investment. Again, some of these are silly and some are affective, but I do, have done, or know people who do all of these ideas. If it works for us, it can certainly work for you.