3 Ways to Cut Costs Right Now

Are you in over your head when it comes to your finances?

Getting divorced not only costs money, but most of us leave with less coming in each month than we had before. So you either need to make more or cut more, right?

We would all like to make more and maybe you have a plan to do that. In the meantime, here are three easy ways to cut costs right now.

 

1)  Lose The Cable

I dropped cable immediately when I left our family home, mostly because I rarely watched tv, but also because when you only have half the time you had before with your kiddos, the last thing you want to do is spend it watching tv.

There is simply no need to pay $200+ for cable when there is so much you can stream through your internet now. If we want to watch a show or a movie, we find something on Apple TV, Netflix or one of the many other apps. We have survived for 5 years so you can do this!

2) Plan Your Grocery List

 

Plan your grocery list based on the specials and sales rather than buying what you always buy.

I cannot tell you how much money I started saving by looking through the weekly ad for my local grocery store and planning my weekly menus and grocery list based on the “buy one get one” specials or considering making chicken tacos instead of beef because it was on sale! I am ashamed to say that I rarely took those few extra minutes before going to the store to plan out what I would buy and I would hate to find out just how much money I threw away. This is also a way to get more organized with planning and having just what you need and not a bunch of food you end up throwing out. I also encourage you to get out of your comfort zone and check out some other stores or farmer’s markets to see what healthy finds they may have. I was pleasantly surprised at the great deals I found at our Walmart Neighborhood Market compared to the local store I had been shopping with for 20 years.

 

3) Stop Paying Others For Things You Can Do Yourself

 

Do I enjoy cleaning my own house? Not really. But guess what? It saves me a couple of hundred dollars a month to do it myself. I also saved $80 a month cleaning my own pool (I live in Florida so it is pretty common to have a pool). I do my own pest control, which saved me $45 a month. Maybe your expenses are different than mine, but I bet you can find at least one thing you pay someone to do that you can do yourself. Do you pay someone to cut your grass? Do your nails? Fix things that you could go on YouTube and learn how to do yourself? It is pretty darn liberating to know how to change the filters, clean the dryer vent, maintain the AC unit, clean out the gutters, maintain the weeds, trim the bushes and many other things I have learned how to do since I got divorced. And taking the money you save and invest in something that can grow?

That is an even better idea!