Lowering your Monthly Bills in a Bad Economy

The first place to start is in the area of entertainment.  You should actually take a week to write down how much T.V. you actually watch.  Are most of the shows you watch on one of the regular television channels?  If so try cutting your cable bill.  You can always sign up for cable again, once the economy picks up, but for now the savings could be well over $400 a year!

Also in line with entertainment, are you buying CD’s or DVD’s when you can rent them?  What about video games?  If you have young ones, you can save a lot of money, by making an adjustment in this area.  Now you can rent just about every movie, video game or CD from your local video store.  Also take a new look at an old favorite: the library!  You can check out for FREE tons of up-to-date movies, music and games from your local library and did I mention that it’s free!

Next look at your kitchen and the pantry.  Are you buying items regularly out of habit, but find that you or your family aren’t consuming them?  Check how many canned goods you have that you are not eating.  You can use this assessment to cut back on your grocery list.  Start by asking your family members what they’d like to eat for the week, month or however often you shop and then write out a list of those items only.  Stick to your shopping list, use your savers card and coupons and watch how fast you save money in this area.  As a positive side note, donate those canned goods you aren’t using to a local soup kitchen or homeless shelter.

Take a good look at your insurance.  Have you stayed with the same agent out of habit?  If so you may be taken for a ride that is getting increasingly and unnecessarily more expensive every year.  View my article on how to change your home owners insurance, for a quick run-down of just how easy it is to save hundreds of dollars in this area.  The link is: http://www.ehow.com/how_5034862_quickly-change-homeowners-insurance.html. At the very least increase your deductible, to lower your monthly premium.  Also look at your car insurance.  If you car is over 10 years old, why do you have full coverage?  Unless you have a special love for your vehicle, would you actually replace it if something happened to it?  If not, scale back to only liability insurance and save in this area as well.

Lastly, there is the latte factor.  If you haven’t heard, you can actually buy coffee in the store. Skip Starbucks and learn to retrain your taste buds for simple pleasures.  Again you can take up these guilty pleasures once the economy recovers, but for now, it’s time to cut the fat.  In this case literally!  I mean who really needs to ingest a Caramel Frappuccino® Blended Coffee every single day?

Taking a good hard look at your monthly bills may seem like a daunting task, but it will be worth it when you find you have more money to pay the bills and less stress in these tough economic times.