The generic advice for financial well-being is to earn more than you spend. This advice can seem hard to follow through on sometimes though – so here are a few ideas that might not have occurred to you.
Try to find ways to simply your life. The starting point for this should be your home. Take a look around. Do you have shelves and shelves of books and CDs? How about getting rid of them? If you are a book or a music lover you first reaction to this suggestion will probably be one of horror, but it may not be as crazy as you think.
First of all, it is perfectly possible for you to rip all of your CDs to MP3 on your computer. Do this and sell your collection and you still have your music to listen to. This will also discourage you from the expensive habit of collecting. You can get more music in future by either buying the individual tracks that you want as downloads, or even just listen to streaming services – there are plenty to choose from.
Books are also a medium that may have its day, and you can eliminate books from your shelves without having to compromise on your love of literature. One way is by getting yourself a library card, and checking out whatever reading material you want. Libraries will often order a book in for you if you request it, and if you want to read something again, just borrow it once more.
Books have also gone digital. E-readers cost money, but they are getting cheaper. In the US some models are available subsidised by advertising. As well as sometimes being cheaper to buy than dead-tree books there are many digital books that are available for free. Copyright expires after 75 years, so this means that you can have access to more classics than you could read in a lifetime without charge.
Another thing that is dear to many people’s hearts is motoring. We love our cars, we see them as status symbols and even as extensions of ourselves. Unfortunately this habit is a costly one, and it may be time for an intervention.
Everything about car ownership costs money. Not only that but the amount that it costs goes ever upwards. Insurance premiums, fuel, tax, all of these things continue to become less affordable. Shine your car up nicely, flog to some other chump and pick yourself up a bike. Remember: driving a car makes you fat and burns money, riding a bike is free and burns fat – you can even ditch that costly gym membership.
Hitting the things that you love the most might be tough, but if you put just a small bit of what you are not spending in a savings account each month you will see the reward.
