How to Cut Your Household Budget Painlessly

(Almost) painless ways to slash your household budget.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Computer
• Note Pad

1. First, ask yourself if you are willing to spend a few hours of rainy day time in order to save a couple hundred or more a month. Ask whether a couple thousand dollars a year or much more, is worth about one half day's work.
2. Get a printout of your most recent bank statements, credit card statements, mortgage statements, utility bills, etc and spread them out on the table. Grab your calculator and pencil. Now get your wooden stake and hammer. We're going vampire hunting.
3. What you are going to be looking for are the hidden vampires that are sucking your wallet dry. Here are a few examples:
   Communication and Print
   Magazines that you don't read any more but which are automatically renewed each year. Make that ANYTHING that is renewed automatically and give it a close look. Do you really need that "plus" e-mail account at $19.95 or that subscription to "Scrapbook Monthly". Start calling and clicking and deleting these options.
   Daily we are bombarded with ads to change our phone service but the truth is the phone company IS ripping you off. If you have access to cable broadband then consider a service that gives you unlimited long distance (VOIP it's called) over your high speed internet. You'll have to set up your 911 address but that's not hard and the quality is just as good as Ma Bell. Savings: $30 to Unlimited per month depending on who you call. Do you really need to surf the internet on your phone or do you just use e-mail. If so get rid or $20 or more broadband access on your phone. If you work for a major company you can likely get a 6% discount on Verizon, Cingular and other carriers by logging in or calling customer service and entering your work e-mail as proof of employment. Savings: $5.00 to $10.00
   If you can get by getting the news off of your internet home page but don't want to give up the paper completely, call and downgrade to the Sunday edition only. Savings: $20.00 (There's tons of store coupon's in the Sunday paper but we'll get to that later).
4. Entertainment.
   How much is your cable bill? Are you paying for movie channels that you only watch once or twice a week because they are full of re-runs? Ditch the premium channels. Savings $20-$60 per month
   Consider a movie rental subscription such as Netflix instead.
   Cancel the satellite radio service, especially if you have an Ipod. Savings: $13.00 per month.
5. Insurance.
   Chances are your homeowners insurance has a hefty discount, typically 15% for having a home security survey (done by your police department for free) and another 5% for a monitored alarm. If you own your alarm there are companies such as saveonmyalarm.com that will monitor your system for around $6.00 per month instead of $40.
   Get a full coverage review and make sure you do have enough coverage. Penny pinching is not worth being homeless if your house burns down! Ask them what things can lower your rates. A metal roof, and and proximity to a fire hydrant reduce rates.
   If your car has a factory alarm, ask if you are getting credit for it. Increase your deductibles and set aside a savings account for car repairs such as broken windows. It might sting to pay a thousand for a dent but it will keep your rates down by not reporting it.
   Also put any junkers you have on liability insurance only.
   Ask your auto insurance company how much their discount is for a driver education course. You can find one on line, spend $25 and 6 hours and save up to 10% on your auto insurance.
   If you have over 20% equity in your home and a recent appraisal chances are you can get rid of the PMI insurance on your mortgage that is sucking $80 or more a month out of your pocket.
6. Automobile.
   Determine how much gas you are feeding your large automobile. If it's more that $50 per week for normal commuting, you're in trouble and it's only going to get worse as gas prices rise. If you are getting 14 MPG city find a car that gets 25 city. Find a used, (never buy new) gas miser and replace the guzzler. Savings: $20-40 per week or more.
   Keep your tires inflated and get a tune up. Under inflated tires cost you 1-2 MPG.
   Stop buying premium gas and buy regular. Most new cars do not need anything but regular gas.
   Carpool or use the bus if you can.
7. Groceries and Household Expenses.
   Find an online coupon site that lets you print manufacturers coupons for the items you use each week and scan the Sunday paper. Those are little dollar and half dollar bills free for the taking. Treat them like money and save $10 to $100 bucks a month.
   Determine if all the fancy throw away toilet brushes and spray cleaners are worth the money you spend. You can find endless sites for making your own cleaners to put in those spray bottles you normally throw in the trash that work just as good as the store brands.
8. Utilities.
   Get a programmable thermostat. The new ones are easy to use and let you set the temperature slightly lower at night and while you are at work. Savings:
   Up to $50 or more a month.
   Replace light bulbs with compact fluorescents. You might have heard that they contain mercury. That's true, but only a small quality and not nearly as much as has been proven to be released burning the coal that is needed to power an incandescent bulb. Savings: $10 to 30 per month.
   Wrap your hot water heater and put foam pipe sleeves on the hot pipe coming out of the top. Get rid of that beer fridge in the garage. It's not worth $20 a month. If you have automatic sprinklers install a weather sensor that can tell if it is raining before turning on the system. Insulate drafty exterior doors and add insulation. There are local and national tax rebates out there for all kind of energy saving expenditures. When they wear out replace washers and dryers with front loading models. They use much less water and because the washer rings more water out of the clothes at high RPM, you don't have to dry them as much. The payback will be a couple of years but they get clothes cleaner too. It might pay to replace your old HVAC with a newer, high efficiency cooling and heating system. Look for a high SEER rating of 14 or better and you can see substantial savings. Systems that heat your home with just resistance coils and not a heat pump are energy vampires. This includes electric space heaters of any kind. Just turn one on and go outside and look at the meter. It may be cheaper to run a heat pump and heat a whole house that 3 - 1500 watt space heaters!

Tips & Warnings

• Keep checking your statements for vampire bills. Those are charges for things you do not need or use. Kill them one at a time!
• Consult an insurance professional before you change coverage. Don't get caught without enough coverage.