As a parent of two children, and thinking not to work too many years, I’m always looking for things I can do to improve our financial situation. Here are 15 things you can do to improve your financial situation. These changes will slowly put significant money in your pocket over time.
1. Replace your light bulbs with energy saving bulbs. Even if they’re not burnt out, replace them. Let’s say you use a bulb four hours in an average day. Over one year, at $0.10 per kilowatt hour, replacing a 75 watt bulb with a 20 watt equivalent will save you $8.03 over a year. If you replace 20 bulbs of the same kinds, it will save you 160$ per year. With some light bulbs on more than 4 hours, you are going to save much more. I replaced every bulb possible in my home; my electricity bill is down 20% each month. You can buy them from Wal-Mart, Home Depot and many other stores.
2. Replace high traffic area light switch to motion sensor light switch. I have two kids and 2 adults in my family, often people forget to turn off lights and they are on all day and night. That will increase your bill by large amount. So I installed motion sensor light in all hallways, bathroom, outside in the front and back. It will switch on automatically when someone is near and be on for number of minutes and turn off itself. If someone is still near, it will re-activate. This way, you don’t have to remember turn lights off or worry about someone forget turning off the light. This will save you good money in the long run, also it make life easier. You can get them from Amazon, usually 14$-20$ each.
3. Install a programmable thermostat. A programmable thermostat lets you define a program for temperature change in your house throughout the day, and weekend. Which basically means your air conditioner and/or furnace won’t run during the day when you’re away from home or turn lower during the night when you’re asleep. This will save drastically on your energy bills. Even better, they’re not hard to install. I did it myself. You don’t have to ask electrician to help. Read the instruction first before you buy or install, if you can’t figure it out, ask someone for help. It usually will waste lots of energy when you turn your thermostat on at 70 degree all day and night; it will be worse if you forget to turn it off; also it will turn on before you even get home when you set it to go on 30 minutes before arriving.
4. Use cash or debit cards when shopping and use checks to pay for things where possible.
5. If you have credit card, pay off all the balance before it’s due. Only pay the minimum due will generate lots of interest for the balance you did not pay off.
6. Review your health insurance and other benefit choices at work. Take a look at what kind of health insurance you chose at work. Do you use it regularly? Would a less expensive option cover you just as well in an emergency? Do the same for your other benefits as well.
7. Sign up for a customer rewards program. If you shop regularly at a particular store, sign up for their customer rewards program, especially if it’s free.
8. Use coupon whenever possible. Many stores have coupon books or item on sale every week or month. Look at the coupons, buy there when it’s on sale; wait if you can until it’s on sale again.
9. Only buy things you or your family need. If you can live happily without it, don’t buy it. Before buying it, think about where to put it, who will use it, and how long it will be used. I will write another article just for this topic.
10. Optimize your auto insurance. Consider raising your deductible on your comprehensive insurance. Consider getting quote from another insurance company, it might be worthwhile to shop around a little.
11. Visit your local library. Don’t buy books if not really necessary. Find out what’s available there in the library, you might be surprised of the free stuff there; from books to CDs and DVDs. You paid lots of property tax so you should get some benefit.
12. Air up your car tires. Look in your car’s manual and see what the recommended maximum tire pressure should be on your car – that’s what the pressure for your tires should be. Get an air gauge, or ask technician to pump it up next time you’re in for oil change. This will increase your gas mileage. With rising gas price, these little things add up to savings.
13. Eliminate any monthly bills for items you don’t use. Your TV cable, cell phone, home telephone, magazine…If you don’t use some option of those services, discontinue them.
14. Shop around online; and compare prices. I usually buy things from Amazon when possible. They have great price and return policy. Also I usually go for the free shipping offers. Most time, there is no sales tax involves, that usually pays the shipping cost, if any. This will save time and money by avoiding driving to the store.
15. Make a list of where you spend money each month, trim down where you spend too much. For example, reduce your dinning trip if you spend too much money on eating out. When you really want to, find some restaurant with competitive pricing.
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