Section 3.4 Other Ways to Save Money
Subsection 3.4.1 Check Your Subscriptions
A huge sector of our economy runs off people forgetting about subscriptions. In fact, some companies will even offer introductory prices way below profitability to get you to sign up and hopefully forget them (or just now use them). Gyms, ancestory sites, and fan subscriptions are some of the biggest culprits today. Here is a general rule, if you haven’t used a service that you’ve been paying for in three months, why are you paying for it? Ditch it. You can always restart it if you feel the need.
Subsection 3.4.2 Pay Yourself First
This technique was mentioned in the budgeting chapter, but it really is a great way to get yourself to reduce spending. When you “pay yourself first,” you put your planned amount into savings before you use any money on wants. For example, if your goal is to save 20%of your take-home pay, when you get your paychecks, you put 20%in savings right away. I highly recommend setting up an automatic system where some amount of money is automatically put into savings accounts. This can be done at the paycheck stage in which you can set some percentage of your paychecks to go to a savings account. It can also be after a paycheck is deposited into your main account in which a set amount is automatically transferred to a different savings account. When you have money automatically pulled into an account that is harder to withdraw money from, you essentially force yourself to do more with less money, saving you from overspending on wants.
Subsection 3.4.3 Pay Off High-interest Debt
If you find yourself with a decent amount of high-interest debt, such as credit cards or some student loans, you may want to focus some of your spending on paying off that debt, even if it means cutting way back on wants for a while. Many people pay hundreds or even thousands per month on just the interest on debt. If you can make the sacrifices needed to get out from under that debt, you’ll have a much more fulfilling life later on.
