Controlling your spending habits

Being able to control what you spend is crucial in getting out of debt. The easiest way to cut costs is to find out what you can cut and what you can't cut.

Let's take my budget for example. There are three items that I can't

cut because of how fixed they are. Those items are my mortgage, my daughter's daycare, and my debt. Now, there are ways to lower these amounts whether it's refinancing your mortgage, finding an alternative daycare provider, or consolidating your student loans or other loans.

But assuming you've done all you can do like we have, then we're sitting at about 83% of my spending I can't touch or do anything about. Now, this number may scare some but we're working on getting out of debt right? So that percentage will slowly go down over time. We got this!

Now, the other 17% we can move around and change to an extent. That percentage consists of Utilities, Cable, Groceries, and Gas. Some ways you can cut these cost is by looking for discounts or rate cuts for your cable and some utilities. I call my cable company and my Auto & Home insurance companies every 6-7 months to see what kind of deals they have. You can save anywhere between $50-$100 if you're lucky!

The most control we have is Groceries and Gas. Some simple ways to save on grocery shopping is to look at flyers and sale items. You can also look around at other supermarkets to find the best deal, the same goes for gas stations. You should also set a limit. Like saying, I'm not spending more than X amount on groceries or gas.

The ultimate goal is to get that 83% down so we can save more and have Financial freedom to do whatever we want! If I were to pay off all my debt that percent would go down to 58% which is a lot less scary then almost 90%.

What do you do to save money? Tweet me @Ditchindebt or comment down below!

Comments

Weekly report: Monetizing my blog + Social Media #5

This week we focused on staying on budget. I also applied and was accepted to an affiliate program which I'm very excited about! I'm looking up a lot of information on affiliate marketing and best practices. Some of the info I've learned is how to market the products on Pinterest. I plan on doing most of the affiliate marketing on there, and maybe sprinkle some cool products on twitter and the blog. Right now I am using ShareASale to find affiliate links to try and make money. My strategy is to find programs that will help people get out of debt. So far I am doing affiliate stuff for a Cashback website called DollarDig ( https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=569535&u=2292638&m=51865&urllink=&afftrack= ) and a discount jewelry store called Balla. (https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=785753&u=2292638&m=52317&urllink=&afftrack= ) For those of you interested, the way I can make money with these company's is if you click on the links and register ...

Saving towards $1,000 in 2 months!

When we started the long journey to saving up $1,000 we were already about $250 shy of reaching $1,000. I like to think that most people have a good sense of saving at least SOMETHING in their savings. Even though we only had $250 to go until we met the amount, we couldn’t just drop that much from our checking to our savings because of our budget. We spend about $4000 a month on our debt, including our mortgage and we bring in about $4,200 (we found that out by doing our budget, we were very sad https://pixabay.com/photos/coins-currency-investment-insurance-1523383/ to see how close we were to not being able to afford anything) There was only one thing I could think of doing in order to get ourselves out of debt, and that was to do Overtime. If you are trying to get out of debt, overtime is your best friend. I’ve been working overtime an hour extra every weekday for the past few weeks and my check has increased a couple hundred dollars. The way my work does over time...

Understanding debt snowball and avalanche methods

If you have heard about Dave Ramsey you’ve heard him talk and praise about the debt snowball. The debt snowball is when you pay off debt from lowest monthly payment to highest and disregard the interest. There is another known way of paying off debt called the avalanche method. That is when you pay your highest interest rate debt and disregard monthly payment. But which one is more time efficient? Let’s find out! The following are random amounts and interest rates to give a good idea on the time it will take to pay off the most common kind of debt. The debt: Credit card: Amount: $8,000 monthly payment: $264 interest rate 15% Student loan Amount: $10,000 For 10 years Monthly amount: $88 Interest rate: 6% House loan Amount: $9,000 for 6 months Monthly amount: 125 Interest rate: 0% Car loan Amount: $15,000 for 5 years Monthly amount: $262 Interest rate: 5% Debt snowball method: If we were to do the debt snowball method, the order would be student loans, h...

Ditchin' Debt

Search This Blog