With the pressure of recession is surmounting in our daily life, smarter budgeting tactics are needed to ace the bad economic weather. The right budgeting methods can help you survive, even prosper today, without the need to live below your mean.
These tips involve nothing related to live below your mean, as it is probably the worst budgeting strategy and financial advice someone can offer you.
- Clip coupons. A few minutes spent clipping coupons can help you save quite an amount of money everyday.
- Buy in bulk. Stocking up, although costs you more today, allows you to save a lot in the future. Make sure you buy in bulk for products that carry no or long expiration date.
- Save your change. Surprisingly, saving your change can add up quickly to your positive cash flow. Many discard their coins without putting much thought – Saving them in a bowl or any other containers can help you a great deal in your daily shopping needs.
- Put a portion of your paycheck into a saving account on weekly or monthly basis. Whenever possible, deposit 10-20% of your income into a saving account and do whatever you can NOT to take anything from the account, not even a single penny.
- Avoid impulse shopping. Impulse shopping causes disappointment and remorse. To avoid it, you should plan your shopping and make sure you avoid any additions to the plan, unless of course, they are either necessities or non-budget sensitive purchases.
- Shop the sale racks. This seems obvious, but not all think that this what they want to do. With today’s recession, sale racks are everywhere and easy to be found in any retail stores or shopping malls – Utilize this help you get bargains (and a considerable saving in your personal finance.)
- Avoid using high-interest credit cards. Credit cards could “kill” you if you don’t have the right reason to own them. Many uses credit cards to finance their purchases, even business – Although this can help you leveraging your finance, the high interest rate could swallow you if you are not careful.
- When using a credit card for purchases, prioritize to use one with an introductory APR (some offer 0 APR) and a regularly low interest rate This could end up saving you big bucks every month and also in the future, which is one of the most important rules to personal budgeting.
- Request free samples. Freebies are live-savers. They can save you a considerable amount of money, especially if you know where to acquire offers for free samples. The best bet is to Google for free samples, and start from the websites in the search result pages.
- If you find yourself buried deeper in your credit card debt, call the creditor and request for an inclusion in a “hardship program.” The “hardship program” allows you lower interest rate and payment for a certain amount of time (depends on the creditor, it can be several months or until the balance is paid off.)
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