Cutting a few non-necessities out of your life is one way to keep your wallet from following the stock market in terms of shrinking in value.
To find ways to save money, look at your daily spending patterns. As a creature of habit, my mornings consist of either a trip to the local bodega for a breakfast sandwich or a stop at the vending machine for breakfast in a bag.
Either step is unhealthy for both my diet and pocketbook. If you figure out where your money is going, you can determine how to keep it. For those who experience mental paralysis when it comes time to make a budget, here are a few spending habits to change to give your wallet a boost.
Ban Bottled Beverages
Get rid of the daily $1 water of soda. The hidden dangers of plastic might leave some questioning the beverage spending habit, but the positives of saving is the greatest incentive to change. Between the water cooler at work and the Brita at home, most people should be covered.
Value to Your Wallet: $365
Toss Disposable Training Pants for Cloth Underwear
I’m childless, but I recognize the cost of raising a child is expensive. And, while removing things like toys from your child’s life might be too painful, getting rid of pull-ups might be an easy tradeoff. Online a box of 108 medium-sized pull-ups cost $59.99. Let’s say your child uses three disposable pull-ups a day, for 52 weeks, that’s 1,092 pulls-up a year. You’ll need a little more than 10 boxes each potty training year, and that’ll cost you about $600. On the other hand, a pack of three cloth training pants costs $12.95 at Potty Training Concepts. There’s even water proof training pants for $7.95.
Value to Your Wallet: $587
