Just for the record, I’M LIVIN THIS STUFF! When I travel all over the place for I Was Broke. Now I’m Not. teaching how to not be broke I’m not just talking about nice ideas that are only for broke people. I’m talking about stuff that I actually do and I’m fired up about it right now because I just made some overdue changes in our budget.
Health Insurance
Over the past few years our health insurance crept up by over $200 per month from the original monthly premium when we signed up with the particular company we had. We just shopped it and saved $100 per month. That’s $1200 per year!
Cable
Over the past few years our cable promotions have run out and I fell in to the trap of letting them upgrade me to something else in order to get the next promotion, so our cable bill crept up to almost $100 more than original. I’m saying NO MORE to that crap. I will not be treated with less regard than a new customer who gets the best deals. The cable is OFF and we have an antenna that gets all the time wasting TV we really need, and that keeps another $100 per month in the bank, or $1200 per year!
Newspaper
Coupons are awesome! But we admit we’re not diligent in using them. When we were flat broke we absolutely had to in order to save every penny we could. (We do take advantage of other ways to save on groceries, but we have chosen not to be “Extreme Couponing” people. We do Aldi, Sams, online coupons, mail coupons, and other ways that don’t involve newspaper coupon clipping). But for months we’ve still been paying for the weekend newspaper delivery that we only signed up for originally in order to get the coupons. Now I find myself being more enticed by the sale ads of stuff I don’t need, so that’s even more reason to get rid of the newspaper. Cancelling our subscription saves us $9.99 per month which is almost $120 per year.
If you’re doing the math just those three things saves us over $2500 per year of TAKE HOME PAY which is about the equivalent of $3300 of gross income. That’s a freakin Disney vacation worth of saving!!!
I’m not done yet either. Our next move might be paying some insurance premiums annually instead of monthly to save hundreds per year, and I’m hacked off at Wells Fargo for charging me unnecessary fees so there might be some banking changes in our near future.
What are your next moves to keep money in the bank and increase your bottom line?
Sounds great!! Good job!