You’ll need to earn $2.00 for every $1.00 you want to spend assuming you pay 50% of your earnings on income tax, social security and Medicare. On the other hand, you get to keep 100% of every dollar you save on your personal expenses because the taxes have already been paid.
Periodically, review your expenditures with the diligence of an exuberant IRS agent on commission. It’s an exercise that most people don’t feel they have time to do but the rewards make it entirely worthwhile.
- Get comparative quotes on car and home insurance to save money
- Review and compare utility providers
- Review plans and usage on mobile phones
- Review plans on cable TV, satellite for unused channels and packages or receivers
- Review on-demand streaming services to see how much they are being used
- Review available discounts on property taxes.
- Consider refinancing home … lower rate, shorter term or cash out to payoff higher rate loans
- Consider refinancing cars
- Call credit card companies to ask for a lower rate
- Review all of the automatic charges on your credit cards … do you need or still use the service?
- Discover late fees that are regularly being paid and eliminate them.
- Review all recurring monthly charges for services; determine if they are necessary or can be eliminated.
An alternative to scrutinizing a credit card statement and having to call each company regarding a charge you don’t recognize is to cancel the card and have the bank replace it with a new number.
You can notify the companies that you recognize with the new card number. The mystery companies will have to notify you to get a card with a valid number. You can decide if you need to continue the service or cancel it. If the companies don’t contact you and you still don’t know what the charge was, you obviously didn’t need it and you saved money.
Most service companies that compete with other companies for your business have customer retention departments. Before you change your current provider, check with customer retention to see if they have a better deal for you. These companies realize the value of a lower the price rather than losing a customer.