You may have heard it all before, but these have personally worked for us. If you'd like to see you monthly expenses go down, making it feel like you, have accomplished something, as well as provide some "wiggle room" to get started. You'll gain the confidence you need to take your first steps to being debt free! We personally gained $250 per month = $3000. (keep reading to find out how--the biggest saver is at the bottom--on purpose) Ha!1. CALL YOUR CABLE/INTERNET/TV PROVIDER and ask for a better rate. You may have to down grade to a "slower speed" Internet or a less comprehensive channel plan, but you may save $10-25 per month. We saved about $20 doing this initially ($240 per year) before giving up our Satellite TV altogether. Which saved us approx. $100 per month ($1200 per year!). Sometimes bundling multiple bills can save money too. We chose not to go that route for various reasons.
2. CHANGE YOUR CELL PHONE PLAN Even if you have a contract, usually your provider will change your plan according to your current needs. We started out with a "mega-minute" plan. I called our provider AT&T. They were accommodating, giving me my average usage for phone & texting, I was slightly over the minutes for the next plan down, but with some confidence that i could reign it in a bit, we made the switch. We were able to gain about $30 per month($360) per year. We were also able to keep a portion of our rollover minutes. We were diligent about who we called and when we called people for a couple of months & now we have so much rollover...we don't even worry about it now! We did not have a land line to begin with, but if you want to consider getting THIS we got it just recently.
4. CONSIDER CHANGING YOUR TAX EXEMPTIONS/ALLOWANCES AT WORK If you get a considerable tax refund every year, you should consider increasing the number of exemptions (or allowances) you take at work. For example if you receive a $3000 tax refund, essentially you've allowed the government to borrow that $3000 from you at 0% interest. That's 250 bucks a month you could be putting toward being debt free. If you're in debt and paying 8-30% interest on that debt, you aren't in a position to be loaning anyone money, right? Right. The best way we've found to figure this out would be to visit the Withholding Calculator at the IRS Website. Personally, I was a little skeptical but with a family of 6 the calculator suggested, was 12 allowances. This will increase our paycheck by approximately $120 per month--$1440 per year! Plus the $1000 we already paid in. That's $2400!
Our Family's Total Increase using these 3 Ways in 3 days was: $2960! ($3960 if you include the $1000 already paid in!)
We'd love to hear how you did! Leave a comment or post your increase story on your own blog and leave a link in your comments!
