Introduction
2022 is turning out to be an uncertain time for lots of folks. While wages have been improving, there are also inflation, a housing bubble, and a few international conflicts that have folks feeling a little more concerned these days about their financial futures.
That’s why I want to take a little time here to go over five ways that might help you achieve better financial stability and wellbeing over time. My goal here is to strike a balance between cutting out unnecessary things in life, while also making life better overall: my advice here should go well beyond cost-cutting for its own sake, and I aim mostly to make you more thoughtful about money in general.
Decrease Food Spending
Every year, Americans throw out about twenty-five percent of the food they buy. In and of itself that’s worrying due to the food waste involved, but it’s also financially alarming. On the low end, people spend about $100 a week on groceries alone per person.
To get a real, visceral idea of this: take out a twenty, a five, and a lighter. Now, go ahead and light both of the bills on fire and watch them burn. That is, in effect, what you’re doing when you throw away food. Instead of doing that, I recommend keeping close track of the food you do throw away. If you’re throwing things away that are going bad, such as meat and produce, I would suggest making a note of that and buying less of them next week, even if that means paying more per pound because you’re buying fruit and vegetables singly instead of in packs. it makes a lot more sense to me, anyway, to eat $10 of good apples than to throw away $5 of rotten ones because I could get more apples for that $10. In short, buy food you’ll actually eat instead of throwing it away!
Plan Ahead for SPending
It’s easy to cut costs for things like coffee and snacks by saying to yourself, at home “wow, $50 a week on coffee and vending machine food is absurd!” and then committing to it. It gets a lot less easy at 3:00 at the office knowing you have a meeting in ten minutes and feel like someone filled your brain with concrete.
Instead of simply hoping to cut spending and making no plan aside from telling yourself that you don’t need something, plan for success by doing things to aid you in your savings. For this example, I’d recommend being honest about your caffeine habit and either committing a weekend to detox from it or, more likely, picking up a thermos on your weekly errands trip to fill with coffee in the morning. It’s a lot easier to pass up that latte when you have perfectly good coffee of your choice sitting right on your desk. The idea here is to give yourself tools to spend more consciously, not to simply deny yourself everything that you enjoy on a daily basis.
Drive Smarter
Here, I have to admit that no one is perfect! I, for one, am a car enthusiast who loves the sound of a roaring, American, V8 muscle car. With that in mind, gas is higher in price now than it has been in decades, so saving gas when and how you can is vital to saving overall.
First and foremost, plan your outings ahead of time so that you can make the most out of every gallon: consider doing errands before or after work instead of on the weekend on special trips, for example. From there, some driving habits can help a fair bit.
Today, many contemporary cars have a cruise feature that will shut off some of the cylinders if you can keep the same speed: this can cut fuel consumption by half in some cases. From there, I also highly caution you against going for lower-octane, cheaper gas than your car recommends. Cars with ECUs, or electronic control units (if your car was made in the 21st century, it has one) are specifically tuned to be efficient with a certain octane level: gas with other octane levels will be much less efficient and end up costing you money as your engine’s computer pumps extra gas into the cylinders to make up for lack of octane.
Cut Unnecessary Subscriptions
As I mentioned in the section about food, I’m a big proponent of spending money on things that matter to me. With that in mind, I think it’s time to consider the subscriptions that work for you. I, for one, have not had a cable TV subscription my entire adult life, nor do I miss it at all. For me, it’s a lot more entertaining to play video games, and thus I’d rather spend that $60 on a new game every few months rather than throwing it at a cable company.
Start Freelancing Online
Aside from cutting expenses, you can also do something to make more money. In my case, this meant looking for a way to apply the skills that I already have in a way that has low startup costs. To me, that meant starting a freelancing writing service that lets me work with the tools and internet connection that I already have, and I can do it in a way that fits into my work schedule. Over the last several years, this has provided me with some extra income and professional connections that allow me to expand my income when things get a little uncertain.
Conclusion
Here, I’ve offered five ways that I think you can either curtail your spending a little or increase your income without taking on substantial risks and costs. With the world a little less certain now than it has been in a while, it’s these small steps that you can take today, that will start to make a real difference in your life financially in the long run.
I hope that these help you as much as they have me, and if you have more ideas feel free to comment or send us a message!