Seems like the topic to discuss is something I have known about, but like Jim over at Blueprint For Financial Prosperity, I haven't discussed much about it. I guess, I just figured that the idea was so simple everyone would already know. However, it is the simplist ideas that we tend to overlook.
The idea is to look very closely at your monthly expenses, and see if you can find areas you can eleminate or at the very least cut back. For example, do you really need the fastest internet service?
I recently seen in my local paper that cox.net was raising rates on their Kansas customers. I called cox up and lowered my internet service to the cheapest (value) service (I had been using and paying for the highest speed of sevice). I already have the cheapest TV service they offer (and that was the only service that didn’t increase). When I told them it was because of their outlandish rate increase, they told me that they hadn’t raised rates in 2 years. At this point I became irritated, and told them I hadn’t had a pay raise in 3 years. That pretty much shut them up, and they said, “OK, I will put this through.”
I swear, these big corporations making millions of dollars try to act like they are so poor, and it’s the consumers they are ripping off, who are really the poor ones.
At anyrate, this simple act will be saving me about $20/month.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. When you’ve cut everything you think that can be cut, there will almost always be something else. Take out your proverbial magnifying glass and examine your expenses very closely.
Do both you and your wife drive seperately to work? Do you have to? Can you carpool, and drop one off on the way to work and then pick the other up on the way home?
Do you really need to have that higher priced bread for your sandwiches?
Do you have to buy brand names? Whether clothing, groceries or tolietries, buying off brands can save you hundreds of dollars each year.
Do you rent your home? Would it be possible to find cheaper rent?
As they say, every little bit counts!
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteTry the ATT DSL. It's 12.99 for the first year. I can't get it at my house...so I just use dial-up.
Cox is available at my house, but I REFUSE to get service from them. I got tired of having rate increases, and I REALLY got sick of their "slick willie" advertising campaings that only told you the price for service for the first promo month.
In my opinion, COX isn't much of a customer-oriented company. I have no use for them, and they'll never get another dime of my money.
With that said, my family went to a "PB&J" night at our house. One night every week we have PB&J. That's it. It saves us about $50-60 per month.
This allowed us to pay for the DR Live event tickets in May for our FPU class, as well as give some tickets to some friends of ours. Taren and I are volunteering to work the tables, so we get in free as well as lunch and dinner with Dave himself.
Pyro - that would be an option if I had a land line, but I got rid of that when sbc (now att) was charging the same as cable...I found it would cost more to have a land line and dsl. now it would be about the same as the premium internet connection that I just downgraded from.
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