Easy Ways to Avoid Spending Your Paycheck Quickly

As soon as you pay bills on payday there may not be must left over.  It can be a good idea to spread out paying bills as best you can to avoid having your entire paycheck taken up at one time, while the other frees up more, so that it sorts of spreads out the payments available funds evenly throughout the month.  What to do with the rest of the income leftover is where it turns into discipline, otherwise you can go through your paycheck pretty quickly and be left with nothing until next check, or worse, go into debt.

Paying for Cable

The old saying about having a hundred channels and there is nothing on still is true.  Think about how much TV do you watch in a day?  Do you flip around or actually watch shows, and if you do, what channels are you watching?  With the rise of Netflix, not to mention having some of the best programming out there, there is little need to have any major network besides maybe HBO, so paying a couple hundred for cable should be a thing of the past.  For local channels, you can pick up an HD antenna for about $20 that will still give you the news and network programming on NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS.

Going to Bars/Restaurants

Now I’m not advocating not going to bars and restaurants, as that is a favorite hobby of mine, but there can be some adjustments to save a little money.  While you should strive to eat most of your meals at home, it is inevitable that you will go out to eat, so maybe try just getting appetizers when you go out, or vice versa and just get a meal and skip the appetizers and dessert.  For bars, having a few drinks at home or friends house before you go out is still a good way to get the night started without paying the drink premium prices.

Buying Music

Going along with bars and restaurants, music is just as high on the list, but that doesn’t mean you need to continue to purchase CD’s, or even digitally or the new trend of vinyl.  With services like Apple Music, you can pay $9.99 a month and stream (and even download to your devices!) all the music that you want, for the cost of what buying one album is.  Sure, it’s technically not “yours”, but it doesn’t seem like Apple Music will go away any time soon and wipe out your music library.

Impulse Purchases

This may be the hardest part when it comes to holding onto money.  Between online shopping, not to mention in-person, impulse purchases are what gets us to spend a significant amount of money.  Whether it is grocery shopping, running errands, or browsing online, it is always a good idea of having a list so you can stay focused on the task at hand.  That is more difficult with online shopping, especially with the ease of one-click purchases helping you to spend even more money very quickly without regret.

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