How to Spend Less Money

Are you looking at ways to cut costs from your monthly expenses? I know I am and the way I go about it, was the way I did it when running a business. I would go through each line item on the financial statement and see if there was a way to reduce the expense for that cost area.

Of course, most of us don’t have an accountant that is giving us monthly financial statements, so how can we do that. First, take all your monthly bills and carefully review them. You want to look for anything you can cut out of those bills. Recently I realized I could get by with smaller garbage if I recycled more–I saved $5 per month. What about your air conditioning or heat. Is it possible to adjust the thermostat during times you are away from home to lower your bill?

Remember, we are not necessarily looking for huge savings. If you find 10 places to save five dollars that starts to add up. If you find huge savings–great!

The next thing to do is look at your checkbook and bank statement. We didn’t have cable TV and we were thinking about getting it. So I looked at how much we were spending on movie rentals and saw that it was $20 more per month than cable TV would cost. Guess what we did. Sometimes it’s not losing something to spend less money, it’s just spending your money smarter.

Food is a big expense, so there’s room to cut costs here, whether you cook at home or eat out. If you eat out, try going to some cheaper places more often, or get a less expensive item, or just drink water or a cheaper beverage. If you buy groceries take a list and stick to it and don’t buy extra snacks–it’s good for your budget and your waistline.