Reduce Your Expenses

Expenses

The financial crisis worldwide has devastated many rich people and worse still many others are out of a job and even more, are going to be unemployed soon. The situation is so bad that there are people who have resorted to taking their lives away to escape from the financial meltdown.

Count yourself lucky that you are still able to keep your job. It is time to review your spending pattern and reduce your expenses as the worst is yet to come.

Lifestyle changes: Examine your lifestyle. Are you still going on a spending spree?
No more impulsive buying and refrain from purchasing non-essential items. Don’t renew the gym membership. Cancel those subscriptions that you don’t have the time to read. Instead of going to the movies buy DVDs and watch them at home. Terminate your connection to Astro and watch TV programmes instead.

Food: Instead of eating out you still can buy your favorite breakfast food and enjoy it at home. Eat more often at home because home-cooked food is healthier and cost less.

Health: Give up smoking and drinking. Drink water instead of carbonated drinks. Maintain good health to avoid incurring medical expenses.

Utility Bills: Make it a good habit to switch off all electrical appliances when they are not in use. Use energy-saving light bulbs. Install a showerhead to take bath. Turn on the air-conditioner and the fan during the early hours of the night and then turn off the air-conditioner later and allow the fan to circulate the air in the room. Make sure that there are no leaky faucets at home.

Your House: Make minor repairs before they become major ones.

Credit cards: Keep only those cards without annual fees. Use your cards only to take advantage of savings. For example, you use a CIMB-PETRONAS card for petrol purchases and you use a Citibank-Giant card for grocery shopping at Giant.

Shopping: Buy house brand items instead of popular brands at cheaper prices and the quality is more or less the same.

Books: For storybooks loan from the library instead of buying new ones because you read only once.

Big-ticket items: When you need to replace expensive household items get a zero interest installment plan from your credit cards so that you can spread the payments up to 12 months or more. By doing so your monthly budget will not be impacted and there is no additional cost to you.

When you are careful in your spending you will soon develop into a thrifty habit.

Source:http://www.allaboutlivingwithlife.blogspot.com/2008/10/reduce-your-expenses.html