In living cheap you don’t have to make drastic changes to your lifestyle; a few small steps will save you small amounts of money in the short term, which will add up to substantial long term savings. Use the money you save to pay off debts, or treat yourself to a vacation or something you’ve coveted for a long time.
Having a goal in mind will give you the willpower to stick to your new money-saving routine.
Basic Saving Tips
1. Give up your daily takeout of coffee from your favorite outlet; if you are used to grabbing or buying a cup of coffee on your way to work or during your daily morning walk in the park, just fill up your handy thermos with coffee from home instead, that is if you plan living cheap. Spending wisely and saving a few dollars every day will add up to around $700 per year!
2. Stop buying newspapers and magazines and get your fix of news and celebrity gossip online instead. If you already have the internet at home, it won’t cost you anything to do this.
Bookmark your favorite sites and browse through them each morning or evening; whatever your usual news reading routine was. If you are used to buying three glossy magazines per months, and a daily newspaper, living cheap you expect to save up to $1000 over the course of a year.
3. Don’t renew your pricey gym membership; instead get out in the fresh air and keep fit by walking and running. If you like to vary your workout routine, invest in a couple of keep fit DVDs and exercise at home. Depending on how expensive your gym membership was, you could save hundreds of dollars per year.
4. Grow your own vegetables if possible; even if you don’t have any outdoor space you can still grow certain varieties of vegetable on a sunny windowsill. If this isn’t an option for you, change your shopping habits.
Go around all your local stores and markets comparing prices to make sure you are getting the best deal. Buying fruit and vegetables in season means paying lower prices and living cheap.
5. Plan your weekly menus. Think about what you are going to eat in advance and plan your menus for the next few days, then buy the ingredients you need and nothing more.
This reduces food waste and saves you wasting money too. If you do have leftover food that is at risk of going out of date, find a recipe you can use it for, cook it and then freeze it.
Once you have started making changes to live more cheaply, you may find that it is so satisfying that you want to find more ways to save money.
Thinking about what you spend your money on, and asking yourself how you can do things for less, will become second nature within a short time, and you will never look back.
Return to the Cheap Retirement Page
Click here to Return from Living Cheap to Cheapest Places to Retire
