If 2009 is the year you are determined to save money and pay down your debt, you no doubt have come up with some financial resolutions!  Here are 4 tips for saving money in 2009:

1. Take one last drag and then say goodbye to the pack-a-day.  Chances are you’ll save around $2,000 per year if you’re smoking a pack of smokes per day!  When you stop buying your ciggerettes, put the money you WOULD have spent on them in your savings account of choice, so you can really reap the rewards of quitting financially (as well as healthwise).  If you don’t do this, the money will just get absorbed into your spending and you won’t notice it.
2. Stop paying late fees. If you are paying late fees on your credit card accounts because you forget to get the payment in the mail before it’s late – set up automatic payments so they occur before they’re due.  If you’re averaging $50 a month in late fees, this can easily add up to an extra $600 a year – why not set your accounts to pay automatically to never pay late – and just send as much as you’ve been paying in late fees previously?  This will pay your debt off faster.
3. Know what to do when extra money comes in. There are times in our lives when we get more money than expected.  Maybe we win a few dollars on a scratch-off someone sent in a birthday card, or we get a bigger tax refund or rebate than expected.  Whatever the reason, what normally happens to unexpected income?  It gets used up quickly and we don’t even remember half the time what we used it for!  Make a plan right now for where to put any extra money.  You could decide 50% of all extra money will be applied to your highest interest debt; and 50% will go into a savings account for your vacation fund.  Whatever your situation, having a plan before it happens means you’ll know exactly what to do to make the best use of any extra income.
4. Wipe out silly subscriptions and memberships. It happens to the best of us – subscriptions and memberships sound like a great deal and you save money over paying per-item or per-month, but take a good look at your recurring payments to make sure you are really getting your money’s worth out of them.  Even your cable tv bill is worth some consideration, now that you can watch tv online for free (or much less than your cable bill, anyway!)

Tags: financial resolutions, new year resolutions, quit smoking

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 8:36 am and is filed under tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

• Building and Rebuilding Good Credit When I was in college, I was often solicited around campus to sign up for credit cards to get free t-shirts and other goodies. I always avoided the temptation and never signed up for any credit cards. In my mind,...
• Ten Tips Toward a More Eco Friendly Home Tip 1 - Turn the lights off any time that they are not needed, even if you are just moving from room to room in the course of your day. According to Energy Star, as much as 20 percent of...
• Personal Finance Links (Avatar Edition) This is coming a little late, but I wanted to make mention that if you haven't seen Avatar you should definitely go. I didn't really have much interest in it, nor did I know anything about the story, but after...
• Tips for Using Your Credit Cards Wisely for Black Friday and Cyber Monday Despite an economy that’s still struggling, the majority of Americans are still planning to use their credit cards during the holiday shopping season – starting with Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In a survey conducted by MarketLive and the E-Tailing...
• Credit Card Minimum Payments I have been a member of the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover forums for over two years now, and in that time I've made several virtual friends, and read many inspiring stories of families who clawed their way out of...