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cutting back on expenses
Oct. 7th, 2008 06:38 ami'm looking for little ways here and there that i can cut back on my monthly expenses. i'm one of the millions of people right now who are going, "oh, hey, maybe $X in credit card debt is not a good idea". in order to try to pay off my credit card by next summer, i'm figuring out ways that i can change my spending habits in order to put it all towards the card. so far i have:
* eat more home-cooked meals. for me, the queen of takeout, this is a big thing. last night's chicken divan experiment tasted awesome, took 30 minutes to make, and gave me 4 meals' worth of food for about $8 in ingredients (and kept me from tossing some food in my fridge in a few days). that alone saved me probably $30 in takeout. whee!
* quit my gym membership. i haven't gone in over 6 months, and that's $40/month i could be putting towards that card. i have my hooping and my dance classes, so no need to pay for a gym membership i don't use.
* magazine subscriptions. every month i buy anywhere between 6 and 10 magazines, so we're talking maybe $40 a month *gasp*. subscriptions to those magazines would cut that down to a fraction of what i pay in the supermarket. ETA: I bought subscriptions this morning for all my regular ones... and the subscriptions saved me almost $350 for the next 12 months. whoa.
so, i'm looking for other suggestions. is there anything you're doing to cut back that really helps?
* eat more home-cooked meals. for me, the queen of takeout, this is a big thing. last night's chicken divan experiment tasted awesome, took 30 minutes to make, and gave me 4 meals' worth of food for about $8 in ingredients (and kept me from tossing some food in my fridge in a few days). that alone saved me probably $30 in takeout. whee!
* quit my gym membership. i haven't gone in over 6 months, and that's $40/month i could be putting towards that card. i have my hooping and my dance classes, so no need to pay for a gym membership i don't use.
* magazine subscriptions. every month i buy anywhere between 6 and 10 magazines, so we're talking maybe $40 a month *gasp*. subscriptions to those magazines would cut that down to a fraction of what i pay in the supermarket. ETA: I bought subscriptions this morning for all my regular ones... and the subscriptions saved me almost $350 for the next 12 months. whoa.
so, i'm looking for other suggestions. is there anything you're doing to cut back that really helps?
