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The title is no joke, and it has a little backstory to go with it. I was unhappy with my job. Working for someone else has always been something that doesn’t sit well with me. Always being asked to put in extra effort and not seeing additional benefits from it. I was exhausted, grumpy, and depressed. Hitting an all time low.
What happened? What did I do?
Finally one day I was frustrated enough with the negative work environment that I quit, and I was dead set to work for myself. I had a little money saved, just enough to last a few months. About 3 – 6 months to be exact. That was quickly going to run out. I knew I need to find ways to save money each month. I also knew I wanted to start my own business, and that I wanted it to be an online based business. What kind of online business? After many hours, even days, of researching and reading I stumbled upon a website. This website at the time was written by a blogger and she had quit her job for the same exact reasons that I had. Underappreciated, and worn out from the drama and negative atmosphere of her work place.
Reading her blog had really hit home for me. She mentioned how she juggled part time jobs until she was able to get her blog to take off. So I kept reading her posts on her blogging journey until I was convinced that my online business should start as a blog, after I get good at that I can see where it will take me. Now remember at this point I’m jobless, on my own to start earning my own money. With a limited cash pool to rely on. If I have to take odd jobs to make it work I will but right then I didn’t want to.
So I started thinking to myself, “How can I stretch what I have even further?”. That is when I came up with the following list of ways to save money each month.
Cancel Subscriptions
What are you paying for in subscriptions? Nowadays almost everything involves a subscription model, especially entertainment. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, YouTube TV, Disney+, Paramount, etc. The list can just keep going and going. Each of them is anywhere from $15 to as much as $60/$70 a month. I took a look at this and removed everything except for the 3 services that I use every single day. I went from close to 10 paid services down to 3.
Stop Eating Takeout
I know this one sucks and is hard. I LOVE takeout, especially Chinese or pizza. How many times a week do you eat out? I set a limit on mine to once a week. The bottom line on this one though is, the less you eat out the MORE money you can save. It’s completely dependent on you how successful you will be with it.
Sell Your Car
This option is completely situational, I’m not telling you to go out and sell your car. But I’m saying, take a look at your life situation. Do you need a car to make a living? If you have a family do you have another car that can be used for hauling kids around? Life circumstances will play a major factor in this one. For me I made a choice here, and it wasn’t easy. I chose to sell my car personally. It still had a car payment on it and then there is the added cost of car insurance. This made a HUGE impact on my monthly savings. BUT, my wife still has her car and it is used as the family vehicle. Like I said this one is purely situational and requires CAREFUL consideration.
Start a Side Hustle
A side hustle is a great way to make extra money. Check out my post on ways to make extra money. Side hustles are a positive impact on your bank account, you are adding money to it instead of reducing how much is coming out of it like the options I mentioned before. There are side hustles all over the internet that can earn you an extra $50 – $1000 or more depending what you do and the effort you put into it. Now you won’t earn $1000 from surveys, but you could if you chose to make a blog. Those of you thinking of pursuing a blog check out my post on how to create a blog and earn money.
Create a Budget
How do you find all the things that you are spending your money on? It’s simple, create yourself a household budget. Listing out your income and expenses. As you are combing through your expenses you will be surprised how many things you may not have known you were spending money on. If you are like me then doing this manually might be right for you. Just give me a spreadsheet and I’ll give you tables. For those of you who don’t want to do it manually, you can find downloadable templates and even phone apps for tracking and budgeting. I’d like to suggest checking out finsavvypanda’s post on creating a budget. She does a fantastic job explaining how making a budget works. Not to mention she has a colorful digital budget binder you can use. It’s a bit colorful for me but the content is spot on.
Payoff Debt
I don’t think there is a single person who likes debt. Yet most Americans have it. Sometimes you just can’t get around having it. There are unexpected life events that lead to it. Home owning, medical bills, emergency situations etc. These happen so we make it work. Now remember I’m not a financial advisor. I’m not even close to being legally licensed. So I will only share what worked for me. I had over $20,000 in debt if you included my car loan. I chose to sell my car, and snowball my loan payments. Snowballing loan payments means that once you finish paying off a specific debt, you take that debt payment and add that amount to the next debt payment to pay it off even faster. This method drastically expedited my loan payments.
Automated Savings/Investment
If you are anything like me, you don’t want to always have to remember to transfer bits of your paycheck to savings, rainy day account, or investment accounts. That is why I prefer a service such like ACORNS. Not going to lie, this is definitely by far one of my best choices I have personally made. I can auto transfer set amounts to my emergency fund, my investment account, my IRA, and so much more. Also you can choose to micro invest your auto round ups on everything you purchase. And if you decide to sign up for their premium services OR if you decide to direct deposit $250 or more of your paycheck, the fees for premium membership are waived. Premium membership unlocks a TON of benefits such as: life insurance up to $10,000, a complimentary will, and the ability to setup GoHenry accounts for your kids. GoHenry is a service designed to help parents to teach their kids money management skills. With money missions, automated allowance, easy funding for parents to put money on their kids cards and much, much more.
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Now you probably are asking, what did it take for me to hit the $700+/mo savings? It was a combination of them all. I first made a budget so that I knew exactly how much I was spending and where. Then I started at the least expensive items and got rid of the things I didn’t use, gradually working my way to the more expensive items. Next I reduced eating out to once a week, sold my car, and snowballed/paid off my debt. It wasn’t by any means easy, it called for me to make some big life changes. Like I ride my bike everywhere I need to go unless I need to take my son with me. In the end though, my shoulders feel lighter, and I know my life is better.
Thank you for spending time with me. Remember to be better today than you were yesterday!!