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- CommentAuthorVS
- said CommentTimeDecember 7th, 2007
Do you feel nervous waiting for the ATM to print out your account balance? Do you find yourself often gazing into an empty wallet, confused?
It’s getting harder to blame savings shortfalls on your miserable pay stub. In fact, how much you save has little to do with your income, research by economists shows. It has more to do with whether you want to save and are willing to adjust to boost your saving.
And you don’t have to be a financial analyst to keep yourself from spending money like a dunce.1. Resist Eating Out
It’s tempting to let someone else do the cooking for you, especially when you’ve just come home from a full day of working. Ordering in or eating out may seem like a way to make your life easier, but it’s an expensive means of doing so.
Taking the extra half-hour at night to make your own dinner, or the extra ten minutes to prepare lunch for the next day, may save you a host of worries when it comes time to pay the bills. If you feel a bit in the dark when it comes to cuisine, well hey, you can find a lot of useful advice on the net.2. Avoid Brand Names
We’re not just talking Polo shirts here. If you think about what you routinely buy, more often than not you’ll find that you could be buying a generic version, and the only difference would be the price (and perhaps less attractive packaging).
When you’re grocery shopping, go for the store brands — it really doesn’t matter who makes the aluminum foil or toilet paper you use. The same rule goes for pharmaceuticals, where you can save yourself a fortune if you stick to the no-names.
Oftentimes, the only difference between brand names and generics is the price. Next time you’re at the pharmacy, compare a Tylenol label with that of a generic acetaminophen: you’ll see that even though the Tylenol is a few bucks more, the ingredients and dosage are identical.3. Kick Expensive Habits
If you’re a smoker, you’re probably coughing up a big wad of cash every month for something you shouldn’t be doing in the first place.
If your addiction lies elsewhere, your problems may be way beyond the reach of this particular article. This tip’s a no-brainer: if you have an expensive habit, saving money is probably just one of the many reasons to drop it.4. Don’t Spend When You’re Drunk
The sight of an empty wallet is frequently accompanied by a pounding headache and blurred memories of acting like a jackass. The bottle can make a person do foolish things: like picking fights with strangers over their haircuts or buying rounds of shots for the table you met ten minutes earlier.
So take out some insurance, bring a reasonable amount of cash with you to the bar, and leave your bank and credit cards at home. Once you’re broke, it’s probably time to crash anyway.5. Avoid Prepayment Plans
There’s a reason why the cable company is always trying to push you into prepayment plans. Authorizing your creditors to dip directly into your bank account is essentially condemning yourself to financial ignorance.
It’s easy to throw a statement away if the balance has already been paid off, but doing so involves overlooking all the little extra fees and rate changes that may pop up. Take the time to examine your bills thoroughly before submitting your payment, and be conscious of where your money is going.6. Choose Your Phone Company Wisely
This tip could be extended to virtually any customer service, but it’s on phone bills that people tend to get burned the most. Ask questions before you commit to a phone carrier: is its advertised rate a fixed one, or will it increase after the first two minutes of a phone call or the first six months with the company? What additional fees will be billed every month?
If you discover that you’re being billed more than you thought you were, you might not necessarily have to change carriers. Again, competition is intense between these guys, and they certainly don’t want to lose customers. Stage a little freak-out on customer service, and you might find that negotiating lower fees or rates isn’t all that difficult.7 .Don’t Become a Tech Junkie
Gadgets can be terribly addictive. Not only are they fun to play with, but our utter dependence on technology also makes it easy to justify blowing hordes of cash on updating all our toys.
But let’s be honest: Unless you’re Bill Gates, there’s no way you can afford to keep on top of every hardware and software upgrade. So why bother?8. Go Easy on the Plastic
Nobody in their right mind would pay 18 percent interest on a car loan, but people seem to have no problem paying comparable rates on their credit card purchases.
I’m not advocating that you trash your card — keeping a consistent balance, even if it’s a low one, on your Visa is good for your credit rating. Just restrict yourself to one card, and contribute a bit more than the minimum payment when the end of the month rolls around. Paying only the minimum doesn’t help towards lowering your balance, it only eliminates the interest for the past period.9. Use Coupons
You might snub your nose at the granny fumbling through her coupons in front of you in the checkout aisle, but she’s probably walking out of the store with a heavier wallet than you are.
Scoop up a coupon leaflet when you go shopping at pharmacies or grocery stores, and keep your eyes peeled for specials.10. Multiply Your Earnings at the Track
There’s no better place to increase your net worth than at the dog races… I’m just kidding.
Do your best to steer clear of the tracks and casinos.
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