Saving money is challenging when most (or all!) of your income seems to be going towards living expenses and debt repayments. There are several ways to reduce your expenses in order to give you some money to save each month – here are a few tips to get you started:

Set up Transfers

One of the easiest methods of saving money is to set yourself up with a savings account linked to your checking account. Whenever you use money from your primary checking account and it’s an odd number, round up to the next whole number and put the difference into savings.

For example, if you swipe your debit card connected to the checking account and spend $4.82, subtract an even $5 from your balance in your check register, and move the 18 cents into your savings account. Over time, these little deposits will add up, but chances are you won’t even miss them when you do it.

Communications

Cable television, cell phones, and internet are often expenses that can be reduced or eliminated all together. Many television shows can now be watched for free, or for a few dollars a month on various web sites – making it possible to eliminate your cable tv bill and save money each month. With a little research, you can even get your computer and television connected to view your shows on your tv through your computer.

Cell phone statements tend to have unexplained charges from time to time. Be sure to examine your statement each month and ask for verification on any fees and charges you don’t understand – you may lower your cell phone bill by a few dollars each time you do this.

If you don’t rely on your internet for work purposes, you may not require the fastest connection or most expensive internet plan. Consider downgrading to a less expensive plan and putting the difference in your savings account each month.

Organize and Get Rid of Clutter

If your home is getting over run with clutter, it might be time to get rid of it, organize, and make a few dollars on the sale of the items you no longer need. Books, CDs, electronics and clothes are all items that sell well on eBay, at yardsales, or on various online sites that buy your old stuff in order to resell it to their site visitors.

Your trash is someone else’s treasure, so before you throw it out, see if you can make a few dollars to boost your savings account balance.

Tags: how to save money, reduce expenses, saving money

This entry was posted on Monday, August 10th, 2009 at 8:43 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.

• Save Money on Cell Phones [/caption]I've written about how to save money on landline phones, but I realized that I didn't cover cell phones. It's time fix that. There are a lot of people spending too much on their phone bill and if these tips...
• Best of the Rest: Valentine's Day Edition I hope everyone is doing something special for Valentine's Day. I'll be making homemade pizza with Lauren, and this time I'll be helpful (we tried this once before but it turned out to be her cooking while I watched baseball)....
• 9 Basic Tips to Save Money Today is a guest post by Brandon Schmid. Brandon is the president of Angulus Marketing Ltd. and has spent most of his adult life studying money and how it works. His blog will help you pay off your debts and...
• Saving for a Rainy Day Having a few easy and down to earth concepts and ideas for spending less, cutting expenses and socking money away is a good way to start putting together a rainy day fund. This freed up money can be applied to...
• Save Money on Television In the past I've given a few tips on saving money on television. One of my more popular articles in the past suggested that it may be possible for people to cut their cable television completely. To recap here where...