Monitoring your expenses can be a frustrating process. It’s difficult to find the time to review your finances and overall money situation. If you take a hard look at your spending, however, the savings can be huge. Use these tips to eliminate unnecessary spending.
Subscription costs
Innovations in technology now mean that we all have dozens of choices for subscription-based entertainment. The Wall Street Journal explains that subscription costs for media can add up rapidly.
A big area for wasteful spending may be music. You may use Pandora, Spotify and iTunes for music. If you’re paying fees to all three sites, are those costs really necessary? Maybe you can cut from three music subscriptions down to one. Keep in mind that Pandora and Spotify have free versions for their music sites.
Movie and TV website fees may be another area for savings. You might pay for Netflix, Hulu and HBO Go. All three of these are subscription-based sites. This may be a tough decision, since these sites create and market their own original programming. Make some smart choice and cut your subscription costs.
Utility-related costs
Like entertainment costs, expenses related to utilities can add up quickly. Your monthly bills for cable TV, electricity and gas use may include a variety of fees. Sometimes those fees accumulate over time and you don’t notice them.
Take a look at each utility bill in detail. Decide which services are really vital, and which ones you can live without.
In addition to utility costs, you may also use a home security service. One ADT home security company explains that customers may consider alarms for a burglary, fire, carbon monoxide or flooding. Since this spending is related to safety, you may insist on keeping this service.
Your morning coffee
A small expense that you might not consider is your weekly spending on coffee and other items each morning. A specialty coffee drink can cost $3 to $5, depending on the coffee shop and where you live.
Maybe you change what you buy each morning. Fast Food Menu Prices reports that a Grande Caffe Latte is $4.52 in New York. The same size Freshly Brewed Coffee is $2.75. If you switch from the latte to a coffee 3 days a week, you save $5.31 each week.
That may not sound like much, but it totals $276.12 a year. If you cut your morning coffee expenses and some other costs, the savings can really add up.
Dining out
The cost of dining out may be an easy spending area to address. While your coffee buying may seem small, dining out is more expensive. Also, there’s more planning involved in dining out. Because of the cost, you probably make a reservation- or at least plan the meal in advance.
Before you dine out, stop and consider how that spending fits into your budget. Say that the meal will cost the two of you $80. Is the experience really worth $80 to you? Would you be willing to pay $40 and get carryout from another restaurant?
Small decisions can have a huge financial impact over time. Use these tips to take a close look at your spending.
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