I’ve seen hundreds of budgets just this year from people who are sick and tired of being in debt up to their eyeballs. They don’t know what they’re doing wrong or how to change it. That’s where I come in.
When we get down to the details, lots of debt is due to those small, daily extravagances. Convenience is chosen over financial security. Comfort reigns supreme.
But let’s not wax poetic here. Let’s get into a few real changes people make under my program.
Food can be a blessing and a curse.
My office had a refrigerated vending machine with healthy snacks. Excellent, right? No. Two hard-boiled eggs and a cheese stick ran at around $6. You could get six dozen eggs for that at our local grocery store. RUN, do not walk, away from that vending machine!
People don’t look at prices when buying food. It’s under their preconceived “reasonable” threshold, so they don’t care.
Take the time and effort to learn what food should cost and then think about it every time you buy food. An egg should be $0.10. A cheese stick is $0.10. Don’t pay 20 times the amount just because it’s less than the salad you could have gotten downstairs.
Subscription creep.
It’s the modern-day version of lifestyle creep. Nearly everything is on a subscription these days. Heck, my services are billed as a subscription!
Regularly check out what you’re paying for and compare that against what you’re using. There’s no reason to have Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO, Starz, Apple TV, and YouTube TV. Who watches that much TV? Nobody with a job, anyway.
Figure out what you’re paying for, dump what you can do without for a month or two, and then reevaluate your choices next month. We dumped Netflix for a month or two, or so we thought, about a year ago. We haven’t missed it much since then. Now we just have Amazon Prime, Disney+, and our free Library apps. We’re saving hundreds and don’t miss a thing.
Could you do that? Absolutely.
Using a credit card.
Hear me out.
Using a credit card is not always bad, but it’s absolutely terrible in some cases.
MIT found that using a credit card results in 17–20% higher purchases every time you buy something with it. Credit card use decreases the pain of purchase, which means you purchase more. It delays money actually leaving your bank account, decreasing the pain of purchase, and increasing money spent.
You’re supposed to save 15–20% of your income for retirement, but credit card companies have figured out how to get it from you instead. Do you see how insidious that is?
But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. They only want our money like everyone else, right? Yep. Think about it.
Not budgeting.
People tend to underestimate what they spend in all different categories. I can tell immediately when a client hasn’t done their homework or when they’re just estimating what they think they spend in different categories. Reality then smacks us in the face.
Humans are absolutely horrendous at guestimating how much we spend. Don’t even try.
Keep a solid budget, track your spending, and then tell your money where to go, so you don’t have to work forever.
If you find that you need help budgeting or sticking with a budget, please check out our programs at Saver Street.
We have courses and services that help many, many people earn more, save more, and give more (eventually).
Not sure how to get started? Follow these steps.
Step 1: Get The Knowledge You Need
Step 2: Get The Accountability You Need (and More Knowledge)
Step 3: Get Personalized Help For Your Situation