Tip Tips To Financial Freedom
Contents
1. Re-Evaluate Your Expenditures
Part of your financial woes might be a result of living beyond your means. Re-evaluating how and where your money goes can, however, help get you back on track. Start by making a list of your daily/monthly expenses, then create a spreadsheet using the data. Create two categories of these, one for needs and another for wants. List down all the needs in one column and wants in another, then start eliminating wants that don’t seem necessary. If you find yourself faced with a financial emergency consider a homeowner loan.
2. Create A Dedicated Travel Fund
Create an account separate from the regular one, then start contributing money to the same. You can choose to make the contributions daily, monthly, or even weekly, depending on your schedules and income. Make sure you can transfer the said amount, say £5, from the comfort of your home online. Make a habit of making contributions to the travel fund and see the balance grow.
3. Cut Down On Lunch Costs
How much do you spend on lunch every day? Look for ways to bring the amount as low as possible. This can be as simple as not getting a soda or packing your lunch instead. Cutting down the cost of a £2.5 drink can see you save up to £12 per week on that alone. That is a whopping £832 a year. The savings will be even higher should you choose to live on packed lunch.
4. Avoid The Fancy Coffee Drinks
While it might be almost impossible to eliminate your regular cup of coffee, you don’t have to spend extra on fancy coffee drinks either. Skip that ultra-mocha grand for the much more affordable drip coffee. Drip coffee provides almost the same amount of caffeine as the fancy one does and costs £3 less. You will thus be saving more than £1000 a year while still enjoying the morning cup of coffee and socializing with your peers at the coffee shop too.
5. Don’t Eat Out, Unless You Have To
Eating out can be quite costly and one of the most significant expenses you might have. Avoiding restaurants and instead preparing your meals can see you save hundreds of dollars in a month. All you need is to learn how to cook if you don’t and start preparing and cooking your meals. Thanks to the internet, you can browse thousands of recipes you can prepare at home without breaking a sweat. In addition to this, preparing your own meals means no more processed foods. A survey conducted by the Food Network revealed that £50 is quite enough to push you through the week, if you prepare your meals, that is.
6. Don’t Use Your Car Too Often
While a car is considered a necessity in the UK, you don’t have to use it all the time. If you only use the car as a means of transport to work, you can then save so much more by using alternative methods. Public transport, for example, provides an excellent way to save on gas and time. Biking is also an option if you don’t live too far off your workplace. Using public transport, ride-sharing, or biking will save you both on gas money and servicing costs.
7. Ditch Cable TV
The average family pays at least £99 for cable TV. The cost can go even higher if looking for premium packages. Cable tv alone gobbles up more than £1,000 per year, with some users paying up to £2000 for the same. Switching to a cheaper entertainment option, such as watching TV online or paying for a Netflix subscription (costs £10), can see you save more than £80 per month.
8. Keep Your Utility Bills Low
The average family in the UK parts with approximately £120 for utility bills. With proper planning and some creativity, you could bring these bills a lot lower than this. One way is to ensure your home is well insulated, then consider putting on warm clothes to avoid turning on the heater. Opening the windows to let the cool breeze in, can also eliminate the need for an air conditioner too. Switching to more energy-efficient appliances and drying your clothes outside will also see you save lots of money in the long run.
