Money sometimes feels like a bowl with holes that you want to fill with sand. You keep putting more sand into the bowl, but it drains away faster and faster.
Maybe instead of focusing on your income so much, it’s time to start plugging some holes. This is even more true in today’s challenging economy when everyday expenses increase so quickly.
Don’t worry; plugging holes doesn’t mean cutting expenses and living like a miser. Check out these five surprising ways to cut household costs that won’t drastically affect your lifestyle.
1. Look at Your Subscriptions
Wondering what to cut from your budget? Take a look at your subscriptions.
On average, US households have nine entertainment subscriptions. This report only includes video, gaming, and music subscriptions. There are tons of other services, software, apps, and retailers that now offer subscription-based plans. Each seems small, but they add up fast ($273 per month on average).
Take a look at your subscriptions and determine what you’re using. You might be even paying some that you’ve forgotten about!
2. Put Your Thermostat to Use
Are you increasingly frustrated with your energy bill? There are many not-so-life-changing ways to lower your energy consumption.
One is to program your thermostat to turn down the heat or AC during the hours that no one is home. Set it to come on just before you usually get home, and the only difference you’ll notice is on your bill.
3. Plan Your Meals
Do you find yourself throwing away a lot of spoiled food? Or maybe you frequently come home with grocery items that you don’t need.
Plan your meals for the week before you go shopping. Then, please make a list and stick to it. This simple trick will cut down drastically on spoiled food and impulse buys.
4. Use Only Cash
It’s easy to overlook how much money you’re spending when using debit or credit cards. It gets harder when you only use cash.
Put $200 in your wallet, and when it disappears, you notice. That same $200 in your bank account can quickly fizzle away unnoticed when using a card.
5. Pay Off Your Debts
This one is easier said than done, but this is it if you want to know how to reduce expenses without changing your lifestyle. Just paying the interest on your credit cards could be eating up hundreds of dollars per month.
Focus on paying off your debt with the highest interest first. Once you pay that one-off, it snowballs and gets easier to pay off the next one.
Learn How to Cut Expenses on the Family Budget
It isn’t as hard as you might think. Once you get started, you might even find a random ten things you’ll regret not doing sooner to cut expenses!
