Expenses You Can Save Money on Going Forward

No matter if you live paycheck to paycheck or have built yourself a little cushion with a few months’ worth of expenses in an emergency fund, there is always room for improvement.  A few years ago, I didn’t know an ira vs 401k, but as you look to how quickly it’s been since you have been in the working world, the years until retirement will come quicker than you think, so it’s good to start as early as you can when it comes saving for your future to grow over time.

Food Budget

Sure, we need to eat, but is stopping for coffee every morning, grabbing lunch from the cafeteria at work, or picking up carryout or even more expensive, taking the family out to eat for dinner absolutely necessary?  While yes, coffee is an important part of the morning and even as an afternoon pick me up, if you can go grocery shopping and prepare your meals at home, you can watch the savings start to add up right away, probably hundreds of dollars every month.  You can even buy a programmable coffee pot for $30 and have it brewed by the time you are ready to walk out the door for work.

Cable Bill

As we continue to see more and more shows getting nominated for awards and word of mouth on Netflix and HBO there really is little need to keep cable anymore, especially if you can count on one hand how many channels you do actually watch on a regular basis, not counting local channels.  For those you can get an HD antenna for around $20 and still watch your local news and networks shows, even buying a recorder so you can still skip through the commercials, with the cost of probably one month of cable.

Paying Credit Card Interest

Now here is really where the money goes out the window if you find yourself not being able to pay off the credit card statement balance by the due date and the interest starts to add up.  Depending on the card you have, you could be paying upwards of 16% APR, so the balance on the card could hardly be chipping away with small payments and you really need to make large payments to get out of debt this century.  If you find yourself having a large balance and paying too much interest, you can look to getting a new card or transferring the balance to another card with lower APR so you can pay off the balance sooner, provided you don’t continue to charge up.

Exercising

While yes, it’s important that we maintain our health but at what cost?  This time of year, the gym memberships are being booked up, with the gyms slated to be packed the first couple months of the new year.  As the months go on, the crowd will attend less and die down, and eventually you will find yourself paying for a gym membership that you don’t even go anymore to, even though you may be saying “next month I’ll go”.