Comments on: Taking A Hard Look At Expenses In Order To Boost Savings

By: Ash women sandals

Ash women sandals — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 03:47:06 +0000

By: Cheap Ash Clogs

Cheap Ash Clogs — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:30:24 +0000

Both, married with one small daughter age 5

By: The Extreme Difficulty Of Summiting A Mountain of Debt | 20s Money

The Extreme Difficulty Of Summiting A Mountain of Debt | 20s Money — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:01:35 +0000

[...] my previous article, Taking a Hard Look At Expenses To Boost Savings [Nov 25, 2009], I talked about the changes I could potentially make to some of my expenses and my lifestyle in [...]

By: ParisGirl111

ParisGirl111 — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:54:33 +0000

I cut my cable off and watch tv online through Hulu. I also switched my cell phone carrier to Straight Talk. They use the same towers as Verizon and have the cheapest rate I have seen on unlimited minutes – $45. Not sure if that would lower your costs any?

By: Moe

Moe — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:45:55 +0000

I used to own a lawn care service. In theory (in some parts of the country at least) it should be cheaper to have someone else mow your lawn, but in reality that isn't always the case. A standard, consumer model walk-behind mower is relatively inefficient and offers poor reliability and longevity when compared to a commercial riding mower (this was the case 10 years ago at least, perhaps not now). Anyway… the point is comparison shopping lawn services might allow you to realize some savings and not have to buy your own mower.

As for shirts, I wear Land's End No Iron Oxfords, and they seem to work out well without using the cleaners. The no-iron thing wears out eventually, as does the shirt itself. I generally get about 12-18 months out of one. I buy 6 business outfits and rotate them sequentially. Some of my work contacts always occur on a wednesday or friday or whatever– I don't want to have an outfit linked to a specific day of the week, and I don't want to have to repeat the same outfit during a week, therefore 6 outfits are needed. This also makes shopping more efficient, since I only shop to replace a worn out item– rather than the guesstimate of "I think I need a few more shirts…."

Perhaps you can get your auto insurance costs lower by either comparison shopping, or altering your coverage somewhat.

By: Best of the Rest: ING Direct Black Friday Sale Edition

Best of the Rest: ING Direct Black Friday Sale Edition — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:16:26 +0000

[...] 20s Money is Pursuing Complete Independence and explains what he needs to do to achieve his goals. Then he begins Taking A Hard Look At Expenses In Order To Boost Savings. [...]

By: Working Rachel

Working Rachel — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:24:43 +0000

I suspect you’ve got a lot of room for trimming, but an obvious first step to me would be to ditch the lawn service. The lawn equipment will pay for itself in less than two months and you or your wife will be spending more time outdoors doing physical activity (making the gym membership less necessary).

By: Zai

Zai — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:07:29 +0000

Some of your dress shirts( that's what I'm assuming is getting washed a lot) can be washed, and then starched at home. it's really a pain and takes some practice, but that would save you a $1-2 per shirt. As for suits, you only really need to dry clean the jackets quarterly, and the pants more frequently.

By: 20smoney

20smoney — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:51:06 +0000

Awesome! You're definitely in a great position with your expenses.

With regards to the 90-95% of my base pay, I rely fairly heavily on commissions which end up being about a 25-30% of my overall pay, but again they are not constant, so I try and calculate expenses based on the base pay, then pile most of my bonus/commissions straight into savings.

Thanks for the comments.

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:39:16 +0000

Both, married with one small daughter age 5