Last week, I shared a post about Simple & Effective Ways To Lower Living Expenses and this post is a result to the responses I got on it. I had promised I'll share more ways to lower living expenses as I learn more and try to practice the ones I can. Our economic uncertainties, as we're experiencing in many countries today, has made it more important for us to assess our financial habits.
Personal debts are on the rise, high inflation, general lack of saving, and a lot of others like that are the challenges many of us face today in our own part of the world.
In all of this, some conditions are within our control, but many are not. While we canโt control every aspect of the economy, there are some choices we can control. These are the little things we decide to do to save some money or extra cash while going forward in our daily living.
Here are some more simple but effective ways to lower living expenses.
Politely decline invitations to sales parties.
There is one habit of market sellers in my area, they literally force you to get items from their shop by bringing prices down and saying all the convincing words for you to hear. While this has helped some people like me get some good items at a fair price, it has also made people buy what isn't a necessary buy causing unnecessary expenses which we would want to avoid to lower our living expenses.
If we would learn to decline such invitations, avoid sales parties where prices are brought down and make you buy the unnecessary, avoid them as much as you can.
Use free resources for exercise instead of gym memberships.
I recently started to work out for a fit and healthy body, my friend decided to use the gym and she bought their membership card but I chose to use mobile workout apps. To cut long story short, my friend is back to using the mobile apps like I do. It saves more, it is convenient and it works the same for the fit and healthy body.
Taking transport everyday, drinking or eating out and repaying for the membership cards, all those are expenses you can avoid if you choose to use free resources for your exercise.
Make coffee at home instead of visiting coffee shops daily.
I don't drink coffee often but when I do, I make mine myself and it's way cheaper to what my friend says she spends in her daily coffee routine. I find it adventurous and exploring new coffee taste but when the expenses gets unnecessary is when you do it way too often. Coffee at home could taste as good as it would in coffee shops, you're not totally sticking to home made coffee but limit the way you visit coffee shops to spend.
Cook extra portions for convenient leftover meals.
We do this more often in our homes here in Nigeria, preparing meals in large portion to save gas expenses and have more for warm ups and enough to eat again. So I'll say I'm practicing this well enough and it saves more. For many who have freezers at home, preparing more which would cost a little less but more, you save the leftovers in the freezer to have the taste intact.
Turn off lights and unplug devices when not in use.
Dad taught me to do this more as he always very conscious of turning things off before leaving the house or when he is sure no one is making use of it. He may have other reasons for doing this so many times but one good reason is that, it reduces electricity fees that we pay. We should learn to turn anything not in use whenever to save some small cash for ourselves indirectly.
Purchase refurbished electronics.
Instead of brand new items, how about getting something that's cheaper but still has quality promised. It's not like we are very sure that the expensive thing would last more for our use, we just get lucky to get the good ones. It is same with getting cheaper items or refurbished ones, we may get lucky with them and so it isn't a total risk taking with our money.
Choose less expensive generic products over name brands.
This is almost same as the last one you just read but this is to those who can't do without specific name brands. Many think the name brand has a lot to do with the item lasting longer, neglecting the aspect of these name brands making prices higher and sometimes too high for one's income. To save money and balance your expenses, try to check out other products and don't always focus on name brands.
Buy clothing out of season for better deals.
A lady I know is always wearing the latest clothes, anyone in season is her next buy and she never disappoint herself by not buying before others starts wearing it everywhere. It's funny how this has succeeded in making her get rid of saving habit totally, she would buy these expensive in season wears and end up asking for money to get other things she knows are very important but won't agree are more important than the clothes she buys.
Clothes are in or out of season, the aim is for us to get what are comfortable for us or keep us in style according to occasion. If it's too expensive and would put a threat to your finance, why buy it when you can get it another time more cheaper?
These are more ways to lower living expenses and hopefully, I'll share more in another post. I plan to stick to the ones I can do while I share them with you here. All these are small ways to build our finances to freedom too.
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