Ready to put some money back in your bank account? You've come to the right place.
Last month I gave you 1o things you could do right now to save money. Here are another 5 quick tips, so get ready to pocket some cash. Remember, as soon as you see an idea you think you can do, you can and must act. Don’t procrastinate, don’t let the opportunity to change something right now slide by. You can save more of your hard-earned cash, and you can do it now. I’ll bet that you’ll easily be able to do at least one of the things in the list below. Let’s go!
- Find another use for your old t-shirts. Do you have a lot of old t-shirts lying around that you never wear, but are too beat up to give to Goodwill or the Salvation Army? Cut them up and use them as rags. You can dust with them, you can clean with them, but my ingenious wife has the best tip for those old t-shirts. Instead of buying expensive replacement wipes for your Swiffer, cut the t-shirts into perfectly sized strips and you can use and REUSE them to clean your floors. They work great with a little floor cleaner and just thrown them in the wash and they’re ready to reuse for next time.
- Save without thinking about it. One way to save money is to just stop yourself from spending it. So go online and create an automatic bank transfer of $25 from your checking account into your savings account. If you don’t have a savings account, or a second account at all go get one. ING and other online banks offer higher interest savings accounts than most banks, so start here if you need to open an account. One of the tried and true methods to build up savings is to pay yourself first. So start here with a simple automatic transfer.
- Quit procrastinating. There’s something that you’re not doing and it’s costing you money. Being late and putting things off is never going to pay off. Late bills turn into late fees. Running late means driving aggressively, which is dangerous in itself, but because you’re driving faster it puts more wear on your car. Even worse – taxes! If you’re late with your taxes you suffer penalties at the hands of the government and that can even turn itself into an audit. What a time sink that could be! Those are just three quick things, but it’s a very long list. So quit procrastinating, do whatever it is you need to do, and move on!
- Get rid of your land line. The days of being tethered to the phone company are over. Cellphones are everywhere and if you have one, you don’t need another phone line, just for your house. Take the savings and bump up your minutes if you need to. If you have to switch to a service like Vonage. If $20 a month for 500 minutes is too much they even have a secret plan that will get you a phone number and incoming calls are free. I currently use this option for my business. We downgraded our service since we use our cellphones so much anyway, but we wanted to keep our business number. So with this plan we’re able to keep the number and it gets us free voicemail. If someone leaves a message we can just call them back on our cellphones – which we would do anyway.
- Work on your organization skills. Being organized has guaranteed benefits. If you know where stuff is, you can find it faster. That saves you time. After all time is money, especially if you do work on the side like I do. Any time I spend searching for something is time I’m not billing a client.Another example is being organized with records and maintenance. If you know when your car needs its next oil change or scheduled service on your car is, you won’t run the risk of suffering unnecessary car repairs. Maintenance is important and if you’re organized you’ll be able to stay on top of that stuff. Especially with big ticket items like cars and homes. Stretching maintenance times is a slippery slope. The first time it’s probably ok, but when it starts to become a habit it will absolutely start to cost you money. And for what? At that point you’re literally paying for not being better organized. Make a list, get a calendar, send reminders to yourself via email – whatever it takes.
photo credit: Kamal H.
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Love the old t-shirts. Hard to get rid of t-shirts, but I feel they can serve a better purpose in the garage or washing my cars. I also love ING as well for online savings. The rates are down, but doing better than my local bank.
I’m also considering getting rid of our land line phone as well. It’s hard to give it up, but the extra expense adds up each year.