If you’ve been following our Forget the Joneses series, by now you should have computed how much money you’ll need to retire, to pay off debt, and build your emergency fund. For some of you, there isn’t enough cash to make it happen. Others may simply want ways to reach financial security sooner rather than later.
Even if you’re coming up short, there are ways to accelerate your debt payoff by adding income or cutting monthly expenses. Some ideas are more drastic than others, but if you’re motivated to become debt-free you know that the feeling of financial freedom outweighs hanging on to material things.
Re-evaluate and Cut Monthly Expenses
Cable TV
Instead of subscribing to an expanded cable package, cut back to the most basic package and supplement with other media. Read more. Swap magazines with a friend. Watch TV shows and movies via Netflix, which is just $7.99/month for the streaming-only option. Instead of buying new DVDs or renting them, create a queue using library holds and inter-library loans. This works for books, CDs, audiotapes and other media too. You’ll get a steady stream of new selections each week and it won’t cost you a penny. By saving $50 a month, you’ll come out $600 richer at the end of the year.
Re-evaluate Phone Plans
Are you using up all your cell phone minutes? Do you have more coverage than you need? Consider switching to a different plan or a pay-as-you-go plan. With your landline, consider dropping the added features such as caller ID and call waiting. If you mainly only use your cell phone, ask yourself if you can do without the landline altogether.
Get New Insurance Quotes, Raise Your Deductibles
If you haven’t re-evaluated car insurance policies lately, you could be paying too much. One quick way to save is to raise your deductible. If you’re deductible is set at $500 consider raising it to $1,000. Yes, you’ll have to pay more out-of-pocket if you’re in an accident, but you could save up to 30% on your rates throughout the year. Or, if you car is worth less than $2,000 you may want to drop collision insurance completely. Consider bundling your auto insurance with your homeowner’s insurance to save even more.
Exercise the Old Fashioned Way
Instead of spending $75 or more per month in health club fees, exercise the old-fashioned way and do something productive at the same time. Household chores like mopping, vacuuming are great calorie-burners. Outdoor chores like cutting grass, washing your car, raking leaves and gardening, burn nearly as many calories as a slow jog. Supplement your fitness routine by jumping rope or dancing with your kids and taking your dog for a run and everyone comes out ahead. You can also find free workouts on YouTube as well as rent fitness DVDs and videos from your library.
More information: 100 Ways to Exercise for FREE
Focus on the Family: Limit Extracurricular Activities
Families are typically overscheduled in today’s day and age. While extracurricular sports and activities are important, spending time as a family is more important. If your kids are in several extracurricular activities, you may want to consider dropping a couple. Instead, institute a family game night. Cutting back on 2 or 3 activities can help you save an extra $100 per month as well as strengthen your bond as a family.
Other Ideas:
- Become a one-car family
- Downsize your house (or apartment)
- Move to a less expensive location
Additional Income
If you’ve cut all the expenses you can and still are coming up short, consider adding more income. If you had to think of a way to earn $10 today, what would it be? Is there a way you can use your interests, talents to accomplish that? That’s how many small businesses are born. Many dreams start out small; just $10 here and there and grow into something much bigger.
- Get a part-time job (you or spouse) away from home
- Babysit or daycare
- Participate in paid surveys
- Mystery shopping
- Create something to sell (scrapbook pages, sew something, etc.)
- Sell something via direct sales
- Sell something: Hold a garage sale, eBay, Craigslist
Make-It Happen Assignment: Make a list of the things you are willing to do to accelerate paying off debt, building savings, and save for the future.
We cut our bills WAY back by signing up for Cable internet. They threw TV in for free and we got an Ooma. The Ooma is a VOIP and so it goes through your internet. It is free long distance and while it costs $250 to purchase, once you do there are NO monthly bills. I pay $62 a month for internet, basic cable AND phone. I do NOT have a cell phone except a pre paid one that I rarely use. I live 10 miles from town have three small children and I live just fine. Oh, and my car is a 93 Grand Caravan.
We recently did away with our cable and haven’t missed if for a second! For anyone that has a wii, xbox 360 or ps3 there is another option for tv. There is a program called playon that you download on your computer and then you can stream hulu, nick.com, youtube, and a bunch of others through your game console. You need a wireless router, and the program is free to try for 2 weeks, then its like $40 for a year.
There are also several other “tv streaming” devices that you can get that do the same thing, there is just no reason to pay for cable! And most of the internet tv has no or very few commercials!
I ditched cable completely and use an antenna plus the internet to get shows I want. Being a mom I don’t even have that much time to watch tv anyway besides whats on broadcast channels and it is FREE! I also do the prepaid cell with Straight Talk for only $30 a month. I get 1000 minutes and 1000 texts and have a basic phone (although they have more fancy ones too) and it has been a lifesaver. BEtween my husband and I we save 100 a month off phone bills and another 80 from canceling cable. It really has added up!
With my cable company whom I have cable, internet and phone service with I call right before my 6 month promotion is over and ask if they have any new promos I can sign up for. I have free DVR, HBO, Showtime and Starz for a year and $19.99 phone service and internet for 6 months at a time. My bill is only $84 a month for all three and its worth the phone call every 6 months.
A google search returns tons of exercises you can do from home that will give you a great workout. I cut out our gym membership and have been using our apartment complex treadmill and some great ab workouts from home.
We also don’t even have a tv (which we don’t miss at all) so we don’t pay any kind of cable fee. If we want to watch something we stream it to our laptops.
We didn’t ditch our land line, but did add another line to our existing cell plan $10/month using our old land line # and hooked up that cell phone via bluetooth technology to this link hooked up to home phones. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0043D2IBE
I like it as we don’t have to keep our cell phone with us all the time in the house, wondering where we left it and can use our existing expandable cordless phones throughout the house.
I know many just get rid of the land line, but we have several calls to that number. For our family it works. We were paying $35ish for the land line and now only pay $10, $25 we can use elsewhere each month.
Please note dings against minutes on calling plan, so make sure your plan allows for your home # minutes.
I like when people are over and want to use the phone, they can pick up the regular house phone and call out without the awkwardness of saying hey, wait – handing them my cell phone to use.
Is it possible to get rid of your home phone and still have the line for internet? We use our Wii to watch Netlfix and so don’t have cable. Our phone and internet bill is about $80 a month, but we could save $35 if we didn’t have the home phone. Also I think there is a way to have a phone line over the internet. Does anyone have experience with this? We have cell phones and could do without the other line.
On another blog someone suggested turning down the water heater setting. There were several comments that this had saved quite a bit of money.
Hi,
I’ve tried giving my dryer a rest. I’ve got 3 or 4 drying racks that I’ve set up in the rec room and I’m trying to air dry my laundry. I don’t know if it will be worth it, but I”ll let you know!