Saving money at home
Saving money when you are at home can be difficult and just plain boring, but it is a necessary evil if you want to make the most of your next adventure.
There are a many ways to save money for your next adventure. Many of them are obvious but some are things no one ever thinks about as an avenue for saving money. This post is a collection of tips and techniques to save more by cutting your expenses and spending less in your everyday life.
Pay Off Your Debt
Quite possibly the most obvious fix for your bank account is to cut away any debt you owe, be it credit cards, home and car loans or school debt. While often the hardest expense to get rid of it is definitely necessary.
If you are drowning in debt from things you bought years ago you will never be able to fully enjoy what you are doing now.
Go new by refinancing your home or auto loan and search around for credit cards with better rates and benefits. Some credit card companies even offer 0% APR for the first year which means every penny you pay off is actually cutting up your debt not just paying the interest.
Cancel Subscriptions
While not being the most expensive or noticeable on your monthly statements, subscriptions can add up pretty quick. Things like cable and streaming services, magazines and newspapers are all unnecessary expenses that will slowly eat away at your monthly budget.
Also getting rid of your gym membership will make a huge difference. I know what you’re thinking. “If I don’t have a gym where am I suppose to keep up this awesome bod?” Well, let me tell you that when you are traveling there are going to be little to no opportunities to workout in a gym, so you best get used to finding other ways of staying active. I personally do bodyweight exercises like push-up, sit-ups, and squats. You can even get creative and use nature as your weights, such as rocks or hanging from a tree branch for pull-ups. It may seem like nonsense at first but if you stick with it, you will find that staying active every day outside a gym will keep that bod in great shape.
Cooking at Home
Start Cooking
By far the hardest way of cutting back for me and it often times makes me a hypocrite. Going to the store and buying your food and making meals every day instead of dropping off for some fast food can save you oodles of cash.
I hate cooking with every fiber of my being. I am one who eats to live not lives to eat. If there were a blue pill that carried all my daily nutrients, I would take it in a heartbeat. That being said it is hard for me to get the motivation to be in the kitchen when I could just get the task of eating over with quickly by having it already made for me.
If you do however love food and like to cook this is a great way of cutting back.
Sell! Sell! Sell!
If you haven’t noticed a common theme in this post then here it is. Sell your stuff for extra money. You will be surprised how much can come from that junk that’s been sitting in your place for years.
Stop! buying things that you don’t need for travel. Like the cool little nick-nack at the corner store that would look great on your kitchen counter with the other thousand nick-nacks. That awesome new gaming system that came out may seem necessary now but when you miss out on skydiving in the Caribbean because you can’t afford it, it may not seem so cool.
Miscellaneous Savings
The savings ideas mentioned above are fairly obvious ways of increasing your monthly savings and aren’t that hard to follow. The following savings ideas are just as easy to implement but much harder to keep doing. They will, however, be easier if you are willing to put your travel dreams above everything else.
Try adjusting the thermostat lower in the winter and higher in the summer. It saves you money and gets you ready for it never being the perfect temperature when you travel.
Keep your electric bill down by only using the lights and appliances you need at the moment. If you have 10 T.V.’s in your 3 bedroom house, consider selling the other 7. Maybe unplugging them so that there’s no possible energy usage, that goes for appliances too. Do you have a million items that do the same thing? Unplug the ones you don’t use and again. Sell them! If you live with others try getting them to commit to your new plan, because if they don’t take it to heart all of your extra efforts will go to waste. I have never met someone who doesn’t like to save money, so it shouldn’t take much convincing.
Start Walking instead of driving everywhere, if it is a feasible distance you can even do as mentioned earlier. Stay in shape.
Saving money while at home is as easy or as hard as you want to make it. It all depends on how much you want to travel.