A couple of years ago, I found myself in lots of debt. I was young, dumb, and had access to credit cards (Seriously, who let these teenagers have access to that kind of money?). This, in combination with leaving a bad relationship at the time, caused me to have over $3,000 in credit card debt.
This scared me pretty bad. I knew I had to do something to kick my butt into gear. I ended up buying a small notebook to track all of the things I was spending my money on, and ended up cutting 8 crucial things out of my budget.
- Iced coffee
This one I am extremely guilty of, even to this day. However, it is certainly one of the easier habits to kick when saving money, hence why it’s a cliche to see on these lists. Especially when you do the math — my daily coffee is about $5 (I love you, Dunkin’).
Now this is fine every once in a while. In fact, I allowed myself to get one every two weeks. But if I got one everyday, that would add up to $35/a week. That’s $1,560 a year! And that’s with me getting arguably not-so-great coffee.
I suppose no one is actually buying a $5 iced coffee every single day. But if you ask me, I’d rather save the extra $130/a year for when I need it.
2. Multiple Streaming Services
Back then, I had about 4 different streaming services I paid for. Truth be told, I definitely wasn’t using them all. Instead, I was wasting anywhere between $7 and $12 per service. I managed to cut my subscriptions down to just one in this area. And now that I’m a student, I get a discount! I only pay a few dollars, and I also get my music subscription included.
3. Fast Fashion
I used to love buying into cheap fast fashion brands like Forever 21. But at some point along the way I figured out that the quality was not worth the price.
Now, I either thrift most of my wardrobe, or only buy the more expensive brands when it’s actually necessary. But I honestly don’t remember the last time I even did that!
4. Bottled Water
Honestly, this one is a no-brainer.
I went from buying water at $2-$3, to investing in a $20 metal water bottle that has saved me plenty of money. Not to mention, helping reduce plastic waste.
5. Uber & Lyft
Don’t get me wrong. Not everyone has a car and not everyone has access to public transportation. I’m very lucky to have a well-funded system where I live. I personally don’t drive for medical reasons, so it came in clutch when I needed to cut down on transportation. At the time, it would cost me about $25 each way to get to work.
That alone would be about $10,400 a year.
Yikes.
6. Name Brand Household Products
This is one I adamantly stand by.
A lot of the more expensive brands you can buy at Target or Walmart either use the same exact formula as brands you get at places like the Dollar Tree, or they repackage their product to sell it there.
Even to this day I buy the cheaper or no-name brands for certain products.
7. Impulse Amazon Buys
I have ADHD so impulse buying anything has often been a issue for me. I try to stick to a rule:
If I still want it after a week, I can buy it.
When I was trying to save money, I extended this to a month. I didn’t need to buy anything extra when I was in debt. Often the impulsive things I wanted to buy, I had something else I could use in place of it.
8. Eating Out, Even On The Dollar Menu
This one surprised me when I did the math.
The dollar menu isn’t really the dollar menu anymore, it’s really the 6.99 menu.
It’s a much better idea to take that money spent at McDonald’s and use it to buy cheaper (and healthier) ingredients to make it at home.
Now, none of these things will a be a magic fix-it-all for you. Because it wasn’t for me. But these habits combined did helped me be able to get out of credit card debt by establishing good money saving habits.
This article was written by Haley Marie Salgado for Cash Flow Diaries
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