Yesterday, I introduced my single, widowed, friend Rene , who shared tips on how she makes an income of 33K a year stretch to provide for her three kids and herself. She’s a cost conscious force to be reckoned with. Here are her tips to save and stay on track budget wise.
- Instead of ATM fees, I either keep cash out of the bank each week from deposits or I get cash back at the grocery store. There’s no charge for these and I stay on track easier with my budget. At $2.50 each, I was making about 50 ATM transactions a year. That was an annual cost of $125.00. Ouch.
- Almost everything I pay is on automatic debits. That way I never pay a late fee, and my credit stays clean. Another nice thing about these auto debits is that often you can move dates around without damaging credit. A few of my bills were being deducted in tight income weeks. I called the lenders and they changed payment dates, with no late fees or credit hassles.
- Since I work from home, I have many computer and business expenses. You can shave have these off by using free fax services from faxZero. I search free computer software. Some, like AVG Free, have been the only virus software I’ve ever used. If I need to ship anything, I use the United States Postal Service’s priority mail, it’s about half of UPS’s costs. For supplies, I watch Staples sales. Often, I can get one month every quarter of free paper and cartridges by using their recycle and reward programs.
- As far as rewards programs, I take advantage of nearly every one I can. I have a desk calendar that reminds at a glance, when a quarter is ending so I can pick up necessary items within that reward period. I also rotate two reward credit cards for purchases, depending on the merchant I’m buying from.
- During a cold and flu season a few years ago, I started using some holistic products that we’ve come to love. However, these were too expensive on my budget to incorporate into our daily lifestyle. I joined a health food coop, (saving almost 40%), became a distributor of another product to get wholesale costs, and signed up for email newsletters from my local stores to catch sales. This has reduced over all, my health product purchase cost by half. You can really eat healthy and buy nutritious items on a budget, but you’ve got to be creative.
To summarize: It’s often not dependant upon your income , it’s how you learn to creatively budget that makes a difference. Two weeks I ago, I presented the story of my friend who is heavily in debt, even though the family earned 100K. On the other hand, Rene’s story is one of success, even though her earnings are a third of the other family. By her figuring, she saves over a thousand dollars a year, just by using these tips. That, according to Rene is the cost of her house payment, plus utilities and phone, for one month. The key to successful personal financial management is living within your means, cutting costs, and seeking ways to cut unneccessary extras. You can still live well, as Rene demonstrates by purchasing health food products. But you must look for low cost ways to obtain these items.