Stopping Chronic Money Drains

Happy New Year everyone!  A fresh calendar year is a great time to implement new financial planning and organizational tips.  It’s also a great time to create a new budget for the year and to plot ways to increase savings, while maximizing value.  One of the major steps that I’ve taken in the last few years is to make sure that I’m not wasting money on items that are not used or needed.  Here are some things to look out for:

–Scan your credit card bills for monthly charges — are you being charged for gym membership, cable, or any type of subscription service that you aren’t using? Are you being charged for something you already canceled? One of the reasons vendors like monthly subscription charges is that many people forget to cancel them and will let the charges continue for some time.

–Do you purchase more service than you need?- are your cellphone minutes accumulating because you are substantially under the allotted time each month?  Would it be cheaper to pay a fee each time that you go somewhere rather than a full membership? These are the types of services that downgrading will help with.

–Do you have high interest or finance charges on your accounts? – If so, consolidating the accounts (to obtain a higher balance minimum), and paying them off in the order of highest interest rates to lowest would begin shaving down these fees.

–Have you put your savings plan on auto transfer? – the easiest way to insure that you save and invest money each month is to have it automatically shifted from your paycheck to a savings account or investment plan.  If your place of work offers this, it’s most convenient from paycheck withdrawals, or you can automate this through your bank.  Without this automatic transfer, even the most disciplined saver might miss a month or two.

The savings from these changes, as they occur monthly, will tend to add up fast.

shared at Works for Me Wednesday and Frugal Friday