These days, everyone is looking for more ways to keep costs down and watch their savings grow. For whatever reason, you need to modify your spending routine, and there are plenty of ways to do this without it impacting too heavily on your quality of life.
In today’s post, you’ll read the top five best ways to cut down and save up.
1) Make yourself a budget
There are a lot of ways that you can become savvier with your spending. For one thing, start off every month with a budget. Don’t leave anything out, and account for every bill and expense. Then make realistic estimates for how much you will need for living costs, and stick to it! You can find some helpful advice on how to do this here.
2) How can you be more efficient?
Can you walk to work instead of driving? It may take a little longer, but your body and wallet will feel the benefits. Can you change the way you use energy in your home? Do you leave lights on all the time and are always forgetting to unplug your chargers? These are some of the easy ways you can cut down on energy usage in the home, and it won’t even affect the way you live because you’re wasting it while you’re out of the house.
3) Make small changes
These can be everything from making a shopping list to remove the urge to impulse buy, to changing the way you shop and opting for non-branded products. Always prepare your food for work in advance rather than buying lunch, and prepare main meals in bulk to freeze for another day. That way you won’t be reaching for the takeaway menu when you’re too tired to cook.
4) Split the cost of expensive items
Life is full of surprises, so when nasty financial ones crop up, it helps to know that you have a back-up if you can’t afford it out-right. Sometimes, you may need to buy something expensive; your freezer might break down or your boiler, and you need it fixed quickly. For situations like this, consider getting yourself a credit card that allows you to buy an item but split the cost of it into affordable monthly chunks. That way, you’ll be able to keep your outgoings more in line with your pay check.
5) Can you cut any direct debits?
This is one area where a lot of people fall down. If you’re coming to the end of a phone contract, negotiate a better deal for being a valued customer. If you’re one of those gym members who never go, quit your contract and save the extra each month. If you write down every expense, I’m sure you’ll find some direct debits that may seem small, but over the course of a year add up to the hundreds.
I hope your savings fund appreciates these top five ways of cutting costs. Do you have any tips of your own? Leave a comment and tell us all about it.
Whenever there is a major expense, I make sure that it’s in the budget or I make a budget for it. Budget is really important for me. Without it, I think my finances would just fall into pieces.
Liz recently posted…To Bike Or Not To Bike – That Is The Question.