Every frugal idea takes you one step closer to your financial dreams. You are limited only by the ceiling you place on your own creativity!
Once you’ve committed to cutting costs and living a debt-free life, you’ll recognize thrifty ideas everywhere. It can actually be fun, looking for new and innovative ways to lower your expenses.
"The greatest gifts you can give your children
are the roots of responsibility
and the wings of independence.”
- Denis Waitley |
If by chance you are afraid you don’t possess enough creativity, you can rely on the creativity of others!
Many people have written books full of one frugal idea after another, and there are plenty of websites devoted to the subject.
Frugaltimes.com and Allthingsfrugal.com are just two sites that are loaded with specific tips on lowering household expenses.
There are also many books that you can check out from the library. (Don’t buy them; in fact, there’s your first frugal idea right there: Stop buying books, and start using the library instead!)
The way to start coming up with money saving ideas is to look at your expenses. Review your last two months expenses, keeping track of every penny you spent. As you examine the list, see where cutbacks can be made.
You might find that some expenses can be eliminated altogether; subscriptions to magazines that you don’t really read, or membership at a gym you don’t go to much, for example.
In other cases, the expenses can be reduced without any major hardship; switching to a cable or satellite plan with fewer channels, maybe, or only taking the newspaper on Sundays (for the coupons) and reading it online the other days.
Many people waste a lot of money by eating out instead of at home. Everyone understands that eating out is much more expensive, but it’s also much easier and more fun.
However, if you’re going to commit to living frugally so that you begin to win financially, you’ll have to reduce that “dining” expense drastically.
You might not have to eliminate it altogether, but you’ll definitely have to scale it back - and stop ordering dessert! (Or alternatively, eat dinner at home, and then go out JUST for dessert. You still have the fun of going out, but dessert is much less expensive than ordering an entire meal.)
Remember, after you’ve gone through the obvious solutions to cut back your expenditures, you need to continue to seek out every possible frugal idea you can find.
Your car insurance, for example, might seem like it’s a fixed expense that you can’t change. However, make no assumptions! Pull out the policy and make a quick phone call to see if you can’t reduce it by a few dollars, maybe by slightly altering your coverage, or by switching to a new provider altogether.
Look at every single one of your expenses and try to find some way of lowering it. With you and your spouse working together, you will soon begin to experience the vast benefits that come from taking advantage of every frugal idea possible.
You’ll soon be paying off debt more quickly and setting yourself up for winning financially. So, how many ways can you save?
"Lack of money is no obstacle.
Lack of an idea is an obstacle.”
- Ken Hakuta |
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Debt is NOT your friend. It's not a wonderful "tool" for building wealth. That's a myth.
