If you’re watching your finances and you want to make some cutbacks, take a good look at how you’re spending money every month.
Unless you’re already pinching pennies, it’s likely that you can make significant cuts in expenses with creative thinking and effort.
Look at your bills
Electric, gas, water, phone and other bills can be brought down significantly with a little effort and sacrifice.
- Educate the whole family on how to save water by turning off the spigot while washing at the sink, brushing teeth, and washing dishes. Unless you’re using the water at that moment, turn it off. Discourage long, luxurious showers by putting a timer in the bathroom.
- Be tenacious about saving on power, too. Turn off lights when you leave a room. Turn down the thermostat a couple degrees in the winter, and turn down the central air a couple degrees in the summer.
- Extras on your phone bill, such as call waiting, voice mail and caller ID, add up to roughly $150-200 per year. Sure, they’re nice, but how much will you miss them if they’re removed?
Save money at the grocery store by planning your meals and making a detailed list of ingredients that you’ll need. Add weekly staples and anything else you need that week. Sometimes seeing the length of your list of necessities will deter you from throwing extra things in the cart.
- Buy more store brands than name brands, especially on things that don’t differ all that much.
- Check sale fliers before you shop and plan meals around what’s on sale.
- Use coupons wisely. Compare prices and be sure you’re not still paying more for a particular brand with a coupon.
Entertainment
What are you spending money on for fun? If you regularly make a stop at Starbucks, go out for a drink with friends, or take the whole family out for pizza every Friday, cut back on expenses by limiting those treats to once a month. Your kids will appreciate them more, if they’re once-in-a-while special events.
- Limit your trips to the movie rental store to once a month. Dig out some of the movies you own and spend an evening watching some old favorites instead. Borrow videos from your public library. Or do a swap with neighbors and trade movies once a week.
- Is your working spouse going out for lunch every day? Packed lunches are cheaper than eating at fast-food restaurants.
- Entertain at home more often. Even if you're providing an entire dinner for you and your guests, you're probably spending less money than going to a restaurant.
Plan your week so that you’re running errands all together to avoid multiple trips per week. Doing grocery shopping once a week will cut down on little trips to the store.
- Carpool with neighbors and teammates for your kids’ activities.
- Walk or ride bikes to anything you can.
- Manicures, pedicures, hair coloring – most salon services can be done at home at a fraction of the cost.
- How much are you spending on having shirts done at the cleaners? How much would you save if you used do-it-yourself dry cleaning sheets, such as Dryel, instead of dry cleaning clothes?
- You can cut your own lawn, spread your own fertilizer, and fix many things in your house yourself.
Make extra cash with your junk
Go through your basement, closets and storage areas. What do you have lying around that you don’t use anymore that might bring in some extra cash?
Have your kids changed video game systems? You might find a buyer for the old system and all the games that go with it. Some stores will buy your old video games, CDs and DVDs.
Sell your old clothes at resale shops, a yard sale or on EBay. Don’t forget shoes, jewelry and handbags. Stores like Play It Again Sports will buy your used sports equipment, athletic shoes and gear.
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