Lowering the Cost of Living

Photo by Takkk from http://commons.wikimedia.org

Our family had a major shift in our priorities a few years ago when we decided to start our own business and I decided to take a stab at being an author. One of the biggest changes that we had to make to start being more financially independent was to lower our cost of living so that we could survive on roughly half the income that we had before.

The first step we took when we decided to begin this financial journey was to assess where our money was going and prioritize what we really need and what we don't. Some of the easiest changes we made were to cut the cable TV, ditch the virtually unused home phone. Instead we subscribe to Netflix and Hulu for tv and movies, and picked a cell phone plan that covers enough talk time for our needs. 

Simple switches like dropping phone service and swapping Cable/Dish tv subscriptions for more affordable options can really impact your bottom line. By dropping our Cable tv, we save nearly $41 per month (approximately $490 a year). By dropping our home phone service but keeping the Fios internet connection we save an additional $25 per month ($300 a year). 

With just those changes, we have an additional $790 to apply to debts, beef up savings and apply to vacation funds. 

If you are trying to get out of debt, take a look a your monthly spending and see what you are spending money on that you either aren't getting a lot of benefit out of, or could live without. Apply that monthly savings to get a boost for your debt and savings plans.