Money Savings Tips and Budgeting While Job Hunting
Money Savings Tips:
1. Negotiate with your lenders
2. If you can’t pay off your debt in full, try to get a low-rate credit card.
3. If you have student loans and credit card debt, you may want to pay off your student loans more slowly, say over 20 years instead of ten.
4. Borrow from friends and relatives as a last resort.
5. Stay on a monthly budget.
6. Set specific goals to shape your savings.
7. Set something aside from every source of income and see your dreams start to take shape.
8. Say no to something – do not spend, and feel free to save money.
9. Set aside a separate account for such budget busters as auto expenses, insurance premiums, gifts, clothing, medical, college, retirement, and vacations; but don’t use the money until you need it.
10. Save three to six months net income, setting aside some from each paycheck now in case major disasters strike like losing your job, uninsured losses, or major medical crises.
11. Shop with a list for food and stick to it.
12. Carry a coupon envelope in your purse.
13. Watch the cash register for over-charging – very common.
14. Ask your bank to withdraw money from your check (once you get a job) on your account and put the money into an interest-bearing savings account.
15. Shop for food once a week.
16. Use bonuses, overtime, refunds to put �¼ of your money away (once you have a job) and use the rest to catch up on bills.
17. Participate in consumer research studies to get paid by calling large corporations in town.
18. Participate in focus group for pay. Look them up in the Yellow Pages under “market research” or search the Internet.
19. House or pet sit.
20. Set up a booth at the flea market or craft show – profit from your hobby.
21. Roll change monthly (once you have a job) and deposit it into an interest earning savings account.
22. Pay your bills online like postage.
23. Turn off the lights, TV, and electronics.
24. Set your water heater in your home at 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Saving Money:
If you save $2,000 a year from age 21 to 31, at age 65 you’ll have $620,296 in the account, based on only ten years of savings compounding at nine percent annually until age 65.
Saving the same $2,000 a year from age 31 to 65, you’ll have $431,222 in the account at age 65 – that’s for 34 years of savings!
Your Paycheck – A smart spending strategy:
1. 30 percent goes toward your rent.
2. 30 percent is designated for domestic necessities.
3. 20 percent is put into saving and investing.
4. 10 percent gets used for all the extras.
5. 10 percent is for paying off your debt.
Like skills:
1. Get discount doc bills.
2. Open two bank accounts.
3. Put spare dough to work.
4. Those coveted little credit cards can do a demolition job on your funds if you’re not careful.
5. Get the cheapest credit card.
6. Pay the biggest balance you possibly can.
8. Attract money with a money plant by placing a jade plant in your home or office.
Hidden cash suckers:
1. Calling 411.
2. Buying movie tickets over the phone.
3. Tipping takeout delivery guys.
4. Low-pressure tires.
5. Multiple ATM visits.
6. The dry cleaner.
7. Designer prescription drugs.
Things You Can Let Slide To Save Your Sanity:
Instead of racing to kick-boxing class, take a stroll around the park.
Live Like a Princess (For Mere Pennies):
1. Let someone reach out and touch you by signing up to be a model at a massage school for students to train on.
2. Target Department Store has babe-on-a-budget plates, bowls, glasses, and flatware by top architect-designer Michael
Graves at affordable prices.
3. Be a petal pusher by buying pretty glass flower bouquets at Crate and Barrel for $1.50 each.
4. Ditch your usual a.m. coffee brew and develop a taste for tea.
5. Make at home meals more haute by upgrading your condiments.
6. Be a frugal fashionasta.
7. Get your hair cut at the local beauty school.
8. Sign up to be a model at an art school for pay.
9. Peruse general help wanted ads to sing up for one-day pay assignments like being an extra in a movie, participating in
research and jury studies; etc. You can also do your own research online and sign up for their email lists to be alerted when new studies become available in your area.
How to live cheaper without suffering:
1. Order the lunch special.
2. Personalize your cell plan.
3. Check your temperature in your home.
4. Sale through life by keeping markdown months in mind.
5. If you grab a bit at home and stow the dough you’d otherwise spend on a pre-clubbing restaurant bill, you could rack up an
extra $3,120 within a year.
6. Pass on fancy gas fuel.
7. Open a 401k plan.
Yard Sale Tips:
1. Have the sale between 7 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturdays only.
2. Don’t neglect off-seasons.
3. Mention items in your ad like kids’ clothes, baby equipment, appliances, never-used items, furniture, and sports equipment.
Books to Check Out:
50 Simple Things You can Do to Improve Your Personal Finances by Ilyce R. Glink
What’s Your Net Worth: Click Your Way to Wealth by Jennifer Openshaw
Cash in the City: Affording Manolos, Martinis, and Manicures on a Working Girl’s Salary by Juliette Fairley
Websites to check out:
www.Usagroup.com
www.Ed.gov/offices/OSFAP/DirectLoan/index.html
