Like any major change in a person’s life, you should try to break it down into smaller, easy to accomplish chunks. Too often we try to leap to the finish line, and get disappointed when reality doesn’t keep up with us. “Lose 30 pounds in 30 days” via dieting simply isn’t possible, but we have that mindset. Same with living with less, people expect huge changes in the short term, rather than making small changes over the long term. 1 cookie per day, or 250 calories, adds up for good or bad. That’s 25 pounds per year you can gain or lose with a small but persistent change.
Same goes with spending less money. If you want to really see what you’re spending, use a debit card for every single purchase, and track it for a month or two. You might find an amazing amount of money going towards convenience. For example I’ve been picking up breakfast on the way to work, and eating out for lunch. Combined it’s about $13 a day, and counting just work days that’s $286 a month and $3432 a year. I can make a tasty breakfast and pack a lunch for around $3 a day, $66 a month, $792 a year. I just have to spend the 10 minutes a day it takes to make a breakfast/lunch rather than eat out.
In the process I’ll eat a lot healthier too, and save at least those 250 calories a day. A year or two later I’m say 35 pounds lighter than I was, and that’s improves my health enough that I’m going to the doctor less as well, saving more money.
Another big money saver is a programmable thermostat. I moved into a house without one which has level billing of $170 a month. After I installed one and set the temps the following year billing was $124 a month. It cost $35 to get, and pays for itself and then some every month.
The biggest thing a person can do is to pass up on the “I want” mentality for say 1 month, and save up some cash that otherwise went for eating out, going to the movie instead of renting one, or getting yet another pair of shoes because the fine pair you already have aren’t “making you happy” anymore. Save that cash up so that you can “reboot” and start paying cash for things rather than borrow the money via credit card. Even if you have the money to pay the card off in a few weeks, you never know when something will happen which will put you into a hole.
Better to save money each month for a “fun stuff” fund, money that you can blow on whatever you like, which sits in a savings account earning interest. Use a debit card if you don’t want to carry cash around, but certainly remove the leash of a credit card, where every single time you buy something you’re telling some big corporation “I’ll pay you back for this real soon, I promise!”
