There are so many pieces to handling the household finances. While making sure you pay all of your necessary bills is a given, but beyond that there is building an emergency fund to have on hand, not to mention saving for the future, on top of having enough money for food, gas, and any extra spending money. In order to free up any extra money each month, you may have to work on thinking outside the box, when extra dollars can be hard to come by.
Try a Spending Budget
Sure, we try and budget our monthly finances, allocating money into bills, food, gas, spending, but how about taking the spending an extra step further and budget within then. If you have trouble staying within a spending limit, one suggestion you could try would be to take out a set amount of cash that you are allowing yourself to spend during that time, and when it’s gone, it’s gone until the next paycheck. Maybe using cash instead of a credit card will give you a second thought on purchases when you actually see the cash leave your hand and go into the register.
Take Advantage of Sales
In addition to having the weekly sales as there always seems to be one, now there is Black Friday, Cyber Monday, among other “big” sales throughout the year. Sales can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. Sales and coupons can get you to buy items that you had not planned on otherwise, just because they’re on sale. If you can limit yourself to buying items that you need when you go on sale is where you will get the most savings, especially if you start Christmas shopping early enough when you can take advantage of these sales.
Compare Prices
With online shopping at your fingertips, it’s so easy these days to check prices between sites in order to get the best deal on a product. It used to be that you had to drive around town comparing prices, probably wasting your whole day in order to save a few bucks. Now you can click from site to site, find the best deal in the comfort of your home own, and have it shipped to your house in a couple days, for free for that matter. No more battling crowds, which is worth it there.
Use a Rewards Card for Purchases
In order to take advantage of credit cards the most you need to stay disciplined on purchases, otherwise it can be easy to fall into debt if you begin carrying a balance over each month and paying interest. If you can stay on track for spending by using a credit card, by using a rewards credit card that gives you miles, points, or cashback based on the purchases you make, it actually makes sense to use a credit card for every purchase, otherwise you could be leaving free money on the table. Again, you will need to make sure you pay the full balance off each month, otherwise paying interest will ruin any savings.