More Mostly-Pain-Free Cheap Living Tips

Well, if you remember from my last post, we were talking about some good cheap living tips; ways to save money, exercise some frugality, and get wiser about improving our financial picture. Many times, all you need is a little creativity and some basic self-discipline to change the things that need to be changed in order for you to live on the cheap without feeling like you’re depriving yourself of life’s basic necessities. I think we left off with talking about washing your clothes in warm water instead of cold, and then about using the library as a good place to find some decent cheap entertainment. I’m just going to continue where I left off and roll with it:

Cheap Living Tip # 4: Turn Off Lights When You’re Not Using Them

Yeah, I can honestly say that this one is a hard one for me. I just like having a lot of lights on, and for basically no reason at all. But what I’m coming to realize is that while having all the lights on in my house gives me that comfortable, homey feeling, it’s also costing some serious ching-ching to keep the darn things on. I have begun to get into the habit of turning the lights off when I leave the room, and not just to keep them on for the heck of it. If you (like myself) have a billing plan with your power company where they charge you a variable rate on your kilowatt hours, you’ll find that you may really be running up your power bill to a significant degree, but doing it penny by penny. Lemme tell you, those pennies add up. Some people may say “Well, I’m on a flat-bill plan where I pay a fixed amount every month, regardless of how much I keep the lights on.” Well, don’t forget that those fixed rates are based on an average of your energy consumption over a 12-month period, so by leaving lights on you’re STILL screwing yourself with higher power costs, even on a flat-bill payment system.

Cheap Living Tip # 5: Don’t Eat Out All the Time

This one’s gonna hurt. You have to realize that one of the biggest money drains known to man is eating out all the time. Again, all of us are great salespeople when we’re trying to convince ourselves of why we should go get that $6.00 Burger King or McDonald’s or Wendy’s meal every day on our lunch hour. Just think, though…if you spend six bucks a day (on average) on eating out for lunch, that’s $30.00 a week, which is $120.00 a month—for most people, that will cover your cell phone bill, or another significant household expenditure for the month. All from cholesterol-laden burgers and greasy fries. When some people sit down to balance their financial books at the end of the week, they may see quite a bit of a drop in their bank balance from the previous week, and they may ask “Where did all the money go?” The sad thing is, they literally ate it.

Well, crud…I have to sign off again, so we’re gonna have to pick this up at a later date. Wanted to write more, but other duties call. Again, all it takes is a little discipline and a willingness to think differently about your money to implement these cheap living tips. Hope you’ve enjoyed them so far…keep on staying tuned in for more to come!