TOP 5 WAYS TO SAVE $100 A YEAR
For some people saving a $100 a month is easy to do but when you are living paycheck to paycheck saving a $100 is a big deal. Start be setting your goals low when it comes to saving money so you will be able to achieve them. It will encourage you to keep going if you are attaining the goals you have set out for yourself.
#1 Make a Budget
Don't buy anything without running it through your budget. I will be the first to say that making a budget is one thing but sticking to it is another thing. After a month of writing down where every cent of your money is going sit down and put everything into categories, this will give you a baseline to start your budget with. Before buying anything make sure you decide whether it is a need vs a want. If it is something that is truly needed then make sure it is in your budget or continue to save for it.
#2 Cut the Cable
We have many other alternatives to cable now and they can be utilized for a fraction of the price of cable. We use Netflix at our house but there is also Hulu and Amazon Prime depending on what country you are from. Even with the Olympics coming up here in Canada we are able to stream it online. Instead of paying for a bunch of channels you don't watch you can access what you want to watch online thanks to the internet.
#3 Cut the Home Phone
We cut our home phone over 5 years ago now. We use a MagicJack and it costs us less than $30 for a year of phone service in our home. There are other services out there as well as just going with a mobile phone if you already have one why are you paying for both.
#4 Cut Back on Eating Out
Eating out is usually a large portion of people's budgets and that is one of the first things that we cut out of ours. Even after cutting it out we were invited to dine out with family and friends a couple of times in the last 7 months. To make going out to dinner affordable for us we had dinner before meeting others at the restaurant and just ordered nachos and water for us to share for dinner out making it more about the company then going out to dinner.
#5 Use Free Wi-Fi
Data on a cell phone can add up really quickly but free wi-fi is readily available at most restaurants in most communities. Cut back on the data you have on your cell phone and use wi-fi instead. I always hook up to my wi-fi at home on my cellphone the minute I am in range. It saves us a lot of money.
To make my costs lower when it comes to my internet I have gotten the cheapest unlimited package I could get for our home use so it doesn't matter how much people stream Netflix or YouTube.
The items I listed above save us more than $100 a year but I know that you have to start somewhere when it comes to saving money. Just pick one thing to change at a time.
Saving money is about changing your mindset more than anything. What are some ways you are saving money?
You might also be interested in reading:
Ways I saved money this month
My Mindful Spending Journey
