Tips for Decreasing Your Daily Expenses
A person’s everyday expenses can quickly add up to be huge amounts and often you will receive unexpected bills which will only add even more stress to your financial situation.
Here are some important tips to help decrease and get on top of your daily expenses.
Have A Strong Budget
For a large number of Australians, the reason why receiving an unexpected bill causes so much shock is because we fear that we won’t be able to make the repayments as we often think the amount we owe is too high for us to afford.
To reduce this stress, embrace the power of budgeting to make sure you account for a bit of extra cash in the kitty each month for when bills are a bit larger than usual.
A clever way to do this is to list out all your expected incoming bills and how much they generally cost, so you can allocate funds accordingly.
From here, you can then work out where you can cut down on unnecessary spending and build your “extra cash” kitty.
Reduce Your Debt
As of September 2021, there are 13,184,537 credit cards in Australia and they all add up to a national debt accruing interest of $18.5 billion.
Reduce Your Household Expenses
For example, there is often a huge swing in prices when it comes to energy bills during summer when you are using your air conditioner. This is often the same during cold winter nights when you leave your heater on.
A few helpful choices to make would switching off the power on the wall, as standby power is a key source of hidden energy use that can add up to more than 10 percent of your household electricity consumption.
Another way to reduce your expenses is to do your washing and drying outside of peak time periods (usually after 10:00pm through to 7:00am). It can have a huge impact on reducing your overall energy costs.
Implement Bill Smoothing
It is a good idea to think of bills the same way you think of electricity, water, gas and telecommunications being paid in small increments and on a more frequent basis.
You can set this up yourself by asking your utility provider to change your quarterly bill payments to monthly payments.
You can also download apps designed to give you greater control of your payments by providing automatic bill smoothing across their utility services to avoid any nasty bill shocks.
Track Your Progress
It is also important to pay attention to your spending habits and track your progress each month so that you can regulate re-evaluate your goals and re-assess your strategy for saving as much as possible.
By paying close attention to your spending habits and tracking your process each other you will be able to make it easier for you to achieve your savings and also reduce the shock and stress associated with any incoming bills.
Many financial institutions have made this process much easier with their online-banking features, and there are plenty of apps available that aim to help track and even incentivise you to do this successfully.
