The following is a post by MPFJ staff writer, Jeff. Jeff writes about reducing waste, saving money and building freedom at his website, Sustainable Life Blog.
When I first started to try to get my finances in order, I did the usual things. I looked for cost savings in my major monthly bills (cell phone, car, rent, etc) and while that saved me a lot of money, it wasn’t going to get me out of debt as quickly as I wanted to be.
After I let the changes I made to my major cost centers sink in for a month, I dug back in to my finances and went looking for more ways to save. What I found was fairly shocking though very helpful in my quest to spend less money and free up more money to pay down debt.
Looking at my results from the end of the month, it was clear that something needed to change – not with my large expenses, but my constant small ones. I was spending a bit of money here and there on small things like snacks, lunches and dinners out, the occasional beer or wine as well as many unplanned trips to the grocery store. In increments typically under $15 and usually under $10, I was burning a ton of cash every month.
I wasn’t even thinking about this spending, it was money that was simply spent because it’s what I’d always done. It was time to readjust my habits and free up more money to pay off debt. Here are a few things that I did.
Establish no-spend days
The first thing I did was to start having what I called no spend days, which are just days where you don’t spend any money. Just about every single purchase I was making most days was something that I didn’t need at all, or if I absolutely needed it I could wait until later to purchase it on a day that I decided to spend money.
I changed my spending day to Sunday only (when I went grocery shopping) and freed up about $50 per week. This added quite a bit of muscle to my debt pay off.
Cook at Home
This gets said a lot, but it’s one thing you can do that will make a huge dent. Stop spending so much money on eating out, and start cooking for yourself instead. One way that I did this was to start batch cooking on Sunday.
My routine went something like this: wake up, pick up a bit around the house, create a menu for the week, then go to the grocery store. Once I got back from the grocery store, it was time to prep my meals for the week. I would cook big batches of things, then individually portion them out into containers so I could just grab one from the fridge every morning and eat it for lunch. I did this with dinners as well. I was eating the same things quite often, but that didn’t matter to me. I was saving a ton.
If you’re interested in getting started, there’s a great part of Reddit dedicated to meal planning, which you can find here.
Add a time buffer
During my (sort of) research on this, I read a book called The Power of Habit and was astounded by how much people do without really thinking about it at all – and I was one of those people. I made a rule where if I found something I thought I wanted (But didnt really need) I’d wait 15 minutes before I made a buy decision and I’d go do something else. For instance if I was shopping on amazon and about ready to check out, I’d get up from the computer and go for a walk.
Usually by the time I was finished walking, I didnt want whatever I had put in my cart anymore.
These are just a few good habits that helped me pay off debt and get me on my way to healthy finances.
How about you all? What are your healthy or unhealthy financial habits? What ways have you used to help save money every month?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo by Flickr user https://www.flickr.com/photos/68751915@N05/6355251231/
