How to Reduce Household Costs

One of the ways to make your hard-earned dollars go further is to reduce household costs. It need not be a burden and can be quite painless for putting extra money in your pocket.

Instructions

1. Organize your cabinets. One of the biggest drains on the average household is duplicate items. By setting aside one day, or even a few hours of a day, and emptying out the cabinets of your kitchen, you may make some surprising discoveries. There may be multiple bags of rice open, or several cans of beans that have been shoved to the back and are gathering dust. Consolidate what you can by putting staples into lidded jars or in the same box or bag. The same is true with household cleaning products, shampoos, toothpaste, or pretty much anything that can be lost in a cabinet, closet or pantry. Not having to buy something for a while is a great money saver.

2. Buy in bulk. Though many Americans have memberships to bulk-goods warehouses, quite a few do not. Consider whether it is feasible to purchase a membership in one of these stores; does the initial outlay of $50 or so dollars break the household budget? If so, then opt out and tap friends or co-workers to see if they can host a shopping trip to one of these stores.If there are no such stores in your area, or if you have nobody you can ask to take you there, consider looking in the bulk food aisle at your grocery store. The lack of packaging and larger size saves you money two ways: The initial price per unit is usually much lower than individually packaged items, and the reduced trips to the store will save travel time and money.

3. Don't suffer. Though you will have to cut back in some areas such as paying for movie rentals, you need not go without. The public library is an excellent resource for entertainment; books, music and movies--all there for the borrowing and all free. If you need to stop buying your daily coffee at the big coffee chain, consider buying its coffee in the package and making it at home. An average bag of coffee purchased this way costs the same as about two coffees bought in the store but yields substantially more coffee to drink.Love those pretzels at the mall but the price is breaking the budget? There are recipes for them online. For the cost of two or three of those treats, you can make dozens. The same goes for gourmet cookies, cinnamon rolls and other treats.

4. Spend a day cooking. Most Americans come home from work exhausted and are in no mood to cook. Going out, even to fast-food restaurants, can break any budget quickly. Instead, set aside one day to cook and do lots of it. Use those extra resources you found in your cabinet to make soups to be refrigerated and half-cooked dinners to be frozen. Placing them into reusable plastic trays with portions laid out in advance can make eating at home not only an option, but a no-brainer.

5. Be honest about your habits and needs. Sit down with your family, roommate or by yourself and be really critical of your spending habits. Use a dictionary to find the definitions of "need" and "want" and refer to them with every item you examine. Even if you wind up cutting only one or two items from your budget, you've at least started to take control of your finances. The next time you sit down, you might be able to pare things down even more.

Tips & Warnings

• Can't afford a membership to a bulk discount store? Consider pooling your money with your neighbors and sharing the card (and its benefits) among yourselves. Some discount warehouses even offer a percent of your purchases back to you as a rebate, which can mean extra money in everyone's pocket.

• Instead of opting for cable or satellite TV, try watching your programs online. Don't have a computer? Ask a friend if you can come over and watch a favorite show together. It might lead to a fun night.