When it comes to freeing up extra money each month you have a couple options. First, you can come up with passive income ideas in order to have money generating in. Second, you can reduce expenses, anywhere from your monthly bills, to what you spend on food, gas, and entertainment. If you take a look at last month’s debit or credit card statement you can see exactly where every dollar is going. Next, coming up with a budget is a great way to ensure you are on the right track once you figured out how much you should allot to each area.
Cut the Cable Cord
While it may sound terrible and a huge shock to what you’re used to, but think about how much time you spend watching TV. How many of the endless number of channels that you get to pick from do you watch, and of those, how many have commercials when you flip to them. If you are like most these days that either watch from your DVR or on streaming services, you may not actually not miss cable at all and you can gain that extra hundred or two a month that you have been spending up to this point.
Avoid Going Out to Eat
Sure, it’s nice to be able to pick out a restaurant of your choosing, order what you want, have it cooked, served, and not to mention, cleaned up after you, but that comes at a premium price. If you pick up lunch while at work, carryout for dinner on the way home, or even taking the family out to dinner, that can add up quickly. Even stopping for coffee each morning on the way to work, even though it may only be a couple dollars, can add up pretty quickly over the course of a month. If you can opt to go grocery shopping instead and prepare your meals at home, even brew your coffee to be ready by the time you’re ready to walk out the door for work, you can see hundreds of dollars a month add up pretty quickly.
Check Your Credit Report
You never who has your information these days as you always hear info being taken at the gas pump or even restaurants and department stores having their computers hacked with customer data going into their hands, so it’s a good idea to at least check your credit report once a year free from the major credit bureaus to ensure that all of the information is accurate, and that you can get the best interest rates on the market for mortgages, loans, etc.
Stop Paying as Much Interest
Speaking of paying interest, for those existing accounts, let’s say you’ve been carrying a balance on a 16% APR credit card, you’re probably not chipping away much at the balance. If you can get a balance transfer promo for 0% for say, 18 months or so, you can pay off that full balance within that time a lot faster than your other card, especially since you won’t be wasting money on interest every month.