sodas with water you bottle yourself. If you want more flavor, add a splash of lemon juice or whatever fruit juice you prefer to the water. Not only will this directly eliminate the surprisingly significant daily cost of soda (it can easily add up to $1,000 a year), but it’s one of the easiest things people can do to get their weight under control and their health in a better place.
Trimming Your Utility Bills
Another area where we all spend money—and where it’s often easy to trim a lot of spending without affecting our quality of life one whit—is with our utility bills. Energy, communication, and cable bills add up to a significant amount of money each month.
Install a programmable thermostat. A programmable thermostat is a simple device that allows you to schedule rises and falls in the temperature of your home. For example, if you have a programmable thermostat, you can have the air conditioning turn off automatically from ten at night to five in the morning each day (when you’re asleep), as well as from nine in the morning to five in the evening each weekday (when you’re at work). The end result is that your air conditioner runs less, significantly reducing your summer energy bill, and the same effect occurs during the winter with your furnace.
Air seal your home. Heat constantly leaks into your home (during the summer) and out of your home (during the winter), costing you on your energy bill. Air sealing your home simply means that you locate the worst air leaks in your home—meaning the places where the most heat is lost or gained—and block those leaks using caulking and weatherstripping. This can be done in a weekend afternoon or two and can reduce your heating and cooling bills by as much as 20%.
Improve your insulation. A well-insulated home can drastically reduce energy costs in both the winter and summer seasons. Many homes are under-insulated, as recommended insulation guidelines have gone upsignificantly over the past twenty years. Add into that situation the fact that many homes are under-insulated when constructed and you have a perfect recipe for energy loss in your home. Consider a do-it-yourself home energy audit to find out your current insulation levels and determine whether an upgrade might save you significantly on your energy bills.
Look into pay-as-you-go phones or Internet telephony. For many phone users, standard plans are simply overkill for their usage. For a domestic phone line, look into an Internet-based telephone solution like Skype, which offers unlimited long distance calling, a number of your own, and voicemail for $2.99 a month (plus the initial cost of an inexpensive phone). If your cell phone use is limited, look into pay-as-you-go phones, many of which offer all the basic services you need without a required monthly bill.
Eliminate your cable bill entirely. The Internet provides an abundance of free access to television programming, and for a very small fee, services such as Netflix offer on-demand, commercial-free access to television programming and films. If you’re looking for an idle entertainment fix, you can get all you’ll ever need through the broadband Internet connection you probably already have.
Housing and Transportation
More than half of the annual income of the typical American family is spent on housing andtransportation—51.7%, in fact. 7 With housing and transportation filling such a large role in our financial life, it’s easy to see how a few clever choices in this area can make an enormous difference in our bottom line.
Rent. Unless you (a) plan to live in the area you’re at for more than five years, (b) have more than 20% of your down payment saved, (c) relish the idea of investing a hundred hours of year in home maintenance, and (d) prefer to handle your own plumbing and electrical problems instead of calling a landlord, renting is almost always a better financial and personal deal for, well, everyone.
What
Trimming Your Utility Bills
Another area where we all spend money—and where it’s often easy to trim a lot of spending without affecting our quality of life one whit—is with our utility bills. Energy, communication, and cable bills add up to a significant amount of money each month.
Install a programmable thermostat. A programmable thermostat is a simple device that allows you to schedule rises and falls in the temperature of your home. For example, if you have a programmable thermostat, you can have the air conditioning turn off automatically from ten at night to five in the morning each day (when you’re asleep), as well as from nine in the morning to five in the evening each weekday (when you’re at work). The end result is that your air conditioner runs less, significantly reducing your summer energy bill, and the same effect occurs during the winter with your furnace.
Air seal your home. Heat constantly leaks into your home (during the summer) and out of your home (during the winter), costing you on your energy bill. Air sealing your home simply means that you locate the worst air leaks in your home—meaning the places where the most heat is lost or gained—and block those leaks using caulking and weatherstripping. This can be done in a weekend afternoon or two and can reduce your heating and cooling bills by as much as 20%.
Improve your insulation. A well-insulated home can drastically reduce energy costs in both the winter and summer seasons. Many homes are under-insulated, as recommended insulation guidelines have gone upsignificantly over the past twenty years. Add into that situation the fact that many homes are under-insulated when constructed and you have a perfect recipe for energy loss in your home. Consider a do-it-yourself home energy audit to find out your current insulation levels and determine whether an upgrade might save you significantly on your energy bills.
Look into pay-as-you-go phones or Internet telephony. For many phone users, standard plans are simply overkill for their usage. For a domestic phone line, look into an Internet-based telephone solution like Skype, which offers unlimited long distance calling, a number of your own, and voicemail for $2.99 a month (plus the initial cost of an inexpensive phone). If your cell phone use is limited, look into pay-as-you-go phones, many of which offer all the basic services you need without a required monthly bill.
Eliminate your cable bill entirely. The Internet provides an abundance of free access to television programming, and for a very small fee, services such as Netflix offer on-demand, commercial-free access to television programming and films. If you’re looking for an idle entertainment fix, you can get all you’ll ever need through the broadband Internet connection you probably already have.
Housing and Transportation
More than half of the annual income of the typical American family is spent on housing andtransportation—51.7%, in fact. 7 With housing and transportation filling such a large role in our financial life, it’s easy to see how a few clever choices in this area can make an enormous difference in our bottom line.
Rent. Unless you (a) plan to live in the area you’re at for more than five years, (b) have more than 20% of your down payment saved, (c) relish the idea of investing a hundred hours of year in home maintenance, and (d) prefer to handle your own plumbing and electrical problems instead of calling a landlord, renting is almost always a better financial and personal deal for, well, everyone.
What
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