Being an adult is almost always tied with living expensively. There are lots of expenses you need to account for, especially once you start working. This poses a major problem because adulthood is also supposed to be the stage when you’re preparing for the future, specifically in building a family and retirement.
If you lose most of your monthly budget in funding your lifestyle, you might be sacrificing your future. That’s why it’s important to cut down on your expenses and reduce your cost of living. We’ve prepared this article to help you with that.
Cutting Down Your Expenses
We often rationalize buying unnecessary items with the sentence, “It’s just a few dollars, so it shouldn’t hurt.” However, a few dollars a day may lead to a hundred dollars a week, and a hundred dollars a week may lead to a thousand dollars per month or year. The money you spend on unnecessary things can rack up significantly without you noticing it. That’s why you need to pay attention to the following money-saving techniques.
Cycle to Work
The price of fuel has been gradually rising, and it would probably keep on doing so as the resources deplete. In addition to this, maintenance tasks on cars and other motor vehicles are also quite expensive. Not to mention the time you lose in heavy traffic or public transportation. One great solution to this is to cycle to work. Investing in a bicycle will help save you hundreds of dollars in a single month, and you will also be saving the environment.
Live with Friends
The cost of housing is also not something to be disregarded, especially if you live alone. This would mean that you’re paying hundreds of dollars a month just for one basic necessity. You can reduce this expense to half or even lower by living with friends. Try hiring highly qualified real estate agents to look for an apartment complex for you and your friends to live in. In doing so, you can use the excess money to save up for the future or purchase an insurance or retirement plan.
Bring Packed Lunch and Coffee
Bring out a pen, a sheet of paper, and a calculator. List down the average cost of the meal you purchase every day, including the cups of coffee. Multiply it by seven, which represents the days of the week, and multiply the product by four, which is the number of weeks in a single month. The number you have in front of you is the amount of money you spend monthly on lunch and coffee. You can significantly reduce this by buying fresh foods in bulk and cooking at home. You can also invest in an airtight bottle and prepare your cup of coffee at home instead.
Don’t Shy Away from Unbranded Products
There’s a high probability that you’re spending more just to purchase the brand of one product. You might be interested to know that some unbranded products can provide the same features, specifications, and levels of quality for a much lower price. Having said that, make it a point not to shy away from unbranded products. If you’re quite hesitant about one, maximize the internet and look for reviews about the product whether it’s actually worth the price.
Maximize the Thrift Shop
After mentioning unbranded products, now is as good a time as any to talk about thrift shops. If you really want the quality of branded ones, you can probably find them for a lower price in thrift shops. This is especially true for clothes and shoes. Furthermore, you will probably enhance your buying skills when you frequent these stores. Sooner or later, it would be easier for you to spot a secondhand item of good quality. This can reduce the amount of money you spend on clothes to almost half of their original price.
Alternative Entertainment
There will come a time when you have to accept that the days of partying hard in clubs and bars are already behind you. That’s not entirely a bad thing because you can probably save hundreds of dollars in one week by not purchasing expensive booze and paying for entrance fees. However, this brings the problem of finding a source of entertainment. While investing in PCs and gaming consoles can probably be money-savers because you’re spending a few thousand dollars for years’ worth of entertainment, there are also alternatives where you wouldn’t have to spend that much. Working out, hiking or reading are some of these less-expensive alternatives.
Identifying the little costs that grow in increments when left unnoticed is probably the main deciding factor whether you can save up or not. That’s why it’s vital to know what your monthly expenses are and how you can reduce them.
