One of the best things I ever did for my financial future years ago, was to start tracking where my money goes. After reading several books on finance, I bought a copy of Quicken software and linked it to my bank. What I discovered was very surprising.
Take the magazines, for instance. My favorite back then was *Wired.* I would buy each issue at the bookstore whenever it came out. Then I realized I could pay $10 for an annual subscription and save the extra money! That's what I do right now and each issue downloads to my Kindle Fire Tablet, which is a heck of a lot better than picking up a paper copy.
A little slice of heaven...
I began checking the unit cost in stores. Many times, it's cheaper to get the large items and buy in bulk than the smaller snack packages. I love Herr's Sour Cream & Onion potato chips "crisps" to you Brits for some strange reason. :) Guess who gets the giant bags now? Me! If I'm ever on death row, for my last meal I'll ask for a Wendy's Quad Baconator cheeseburger, Haagen Dazs Choclate Ice Cream and a big bag of Herr's, and some french onion dip. To Go...
Scott Toilet paper, which is $1 for one roll or $3.79 for four rolls, but if you get the giant pack of 20 rolls (in 5 packages) for just over $13. Why pay more? I won't buy another brand, Scott is simply the best. Any savings can go powering up more LEO and HIVE.
Money for the taking
My school offers free money every semester for students that apply. All that needs to be done is to make an application with a short essay and there's a good chance you'll have free money in your bank account. We're told it's like this at colleges everywhere, with millions of dollars left unclaimed. Despite being told about this, many students don't bother filling out the paperwork.
I was awarded over $2000 in scholarship money this year alone, including a $1000 scholarship as I was the only one who applied for it... Isn't that crazy? On a campus with thousands of students, they posted signs in all of the buildings and sent out mailings, but no one bothered to apply. They offered a workshop about this and told us that any monies not disbursed this year, will just go to waste until the next year in the hope that students will make another attempt at them then. The scholarship lady told me to give it a shot and I was happy to oblige.
The important thing is to be smart and not waste your funds on things that you don't need. That software provided me the means to prune the wasteful spending habits I'd acquired and begin again in a smart way. Part of putting my money to work for me, now allows me to support other content creators on the blockchain by increasing my upvote. What are some of the things you do to stretch your budget and better manage your money?
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Awesome, followed. Found you on Blurt
Thanks man, got you right back! :)
Thank you for your post. It was informative and enlightening. I don't always get the opportunity of learning from someone else that also realizes the effects of day-to-day life on your wallet.
Finding out I was Spending over $100 on magazines each month, really woke me up! It has a habit of slipping past us until we can see it with our own eyes... :)
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No doubt it was surprising. I spent a small fortune on cableTV that my inlaws never used because they were used to watching internet TV. My wife and I now take turns looking at the books so that neither of us becomes too complacent with the bills. What a difference it made. We were even able to afford to put our kids in daycare and move into a bigger home.
That's a nice upgrade which I'm sure made your home life much more comfortable. I love going to Walmart and watching the prices fall and won't buy until I knw they're at rock bottom. I even ask the clerks when items will go on sale so I can come back and buy then. Part of the savings are invested into stocks and crypto, just waiting for them to moon!
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Very informative post with a lot of great ideas, I have a great tip for you. Once you get out of debt and have extra spending money you can see an item that you always buy that is on sale, then I buy six months to a Year's worth of that item. After a few years of doing this you find your only shopping for products that expire right away and fresh vegetables and meats. Sooner or later everything you buy is always on sale and save you a ton of money.
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Those are some great tips and that's actually what I'm doing right now. I purchased that software years ago when I was unemployed and short on cash. I ended up learning the various seasons things went on sale and buy a lot of my bulk items around Black Friday, in Jan and Feb and during the summer. Let everyone else pay full price, we can save! :)
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Nice!
Trimming off the excess fat of expenditure is the way to go for sure!
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That was a lot of fat! lol I've felt much better since then and love watching my little crypto snowball rolling downhill and getting bigger week by week... :)
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