I have redone my budget and needless to say it still requires finetuning. A great tool from Martin the Money Saving Expert, provides you with a quick downloadable excell sheet to see how you are doing with your budget and whether you are in the green or the red. I still have to curb spending a bit more but it is a useful exercise to be doing at the end of our tax year and to focus the attention on what exactly we spend our money on.
As a result, I have cancelled magazine subscriptions by direct debit thinking that if I want the magazine I can buy it out of my monthly allowance. If I am honest I never read them these days, I like the pictures and then have to recycle them. Seems a lot of effort. I could read ezines which are free or just search the internet for information....why pay someone else to provide it. This should simplify my life and lighten my pockets and recycling bin minimizing also the amount of miles the magazines travelled and the amount of trees that were used in making them.
I also looked at the insurance policies I have and in particular to those I bought with appliances. I figured that actually if you pay those for 3 years you probably could replace your item. I have made the decision to cut out the vacuum insurance, fridge and freezer insurance which were setting me back £ 50 per month. Instead, I plan to save the money in my emergency fund and then if I need to replace an item or get it repaired hopefully the money will be there to sort it out. Working on it. That has saved me £ 75 per month today, and should make life simpler. The other £ 25 will help to balance the budget.
What are you paying for automatically that could be changed?
2 comments:
I'd have to say my cable TV and cell phone are luxuries that I could easily live without. It would put about $45 per month back in my pocket if I cancelled those services.
I have looked into changing or doing without the cable TV but at the moment that would freek the kids out too much so will be doing it slowly. I did think about taking the nmovie channell away and just having it when we watch it most, i.e. in the winter months.
Post a Comment