When it comes to freeing up extra money each month, it really comes down to the simple dollars and sense of needing more money to come in instead of going out.  With all of the monthly expenses that we have, busy family life, it can be easy to fall out of a budget and start to carelessly spending.  The problem is that no longer will your budget be out of whack, but you could be putting yourself into debt further, most likely jeopardizing your future savings.  In order to maximize earnings each month and reducing unnecessary expenses, it’s important not to overspend on any items that you do not have to.

Lease Instead of Buy Your Car

If you go look at new cars and check out the sticker price, you could be in for a big shock when you see that $40,000 price tag.  Now even if you get a zero percent interest rate loan for seven years, that payment would still be almost $500 a month, and you have to keep the car through repairs, and when it’s finally paid off, you’ll lucky if you get anything after you enjoy a little while with no car payment, you’ll want something new.  Do yourself a favor and lease.  You’re more than likely always have a car payment, so why not get a new car every two years for a lease payment of few hundred dollars a month.

Go Grocery Shopping Instead of Eating Out

One of the biggest ways we can overspend in a month is on our food budget.  Sure, it’s nice to have someone else prepare our food for us, but that comes at top dollar, whereas if you went grocery shopping you could prepare meals to last a week for a fraction of the cost of going out.  One way where you get a double hit is when you have food at home that you can make but you still end up going out to dinner because you don’t feel like cooking. If you can limit going out to eat for special occasions or even planning on once a week, you’ll notice the savings add up right away.

Stick to the Cheaper Clothes Retail Stores

I hate to say it, well maybe I don’t, but no one cares where your clothes came from.  This isn’t high school in the 90’s where brands are important.  These days all the clothes look similar.  If I’m wearing a navy-blue V-neck t-shirt, it doesn’t matter if it’s from Target, Old Navy, or a high-end premium store (can’t even name one), so why pay the extra money.

Your New Best Friend Can Be a Bargain

You see those commercials on all the time of the dogs that are malnourished, looking at the camera with the sad face, that breaks your heart every time, where you need to turn away.  With that in mind, it’s crazy that people can spend thousands of dollars on a puppy, when you can meet your new best friend at the rescue shelter for a couple hundred dollars, providing them a with a great home and you with a new companion.  The amount of money you spend doesn’t mean they’re going to be any better of a dog, it’s just based on the breed, and greed for that matter.

Credit Cards Need to Have Rewards

There are virtually endless amounts of credit cards on the market, almost begging for your business as you get mail probably every day asking you to sign up for a credit card.  With that in mind, it really doesn’t make sense to hang onto a credit card that not only doesn’t have the best APR, but even more importantly (if you can avoid carrying over a balance every month), are the credit card rewards that come along in the form of miles, points, or dollars, that you get just by making the normal purchases that you would be anyways.

Lose the Ticket Service Fees

Whether it’s a concert or sporting event, you go to buy tickets and you notice that 40% of the ticket cost is added on top of the face value for service charges, almost pricing yourself out of buying the tickets, which turn a $35 face value concert almost wanting to skip when it’s $50 out the door.  If you can go when tickets go on sale, you can visit the venue box office and buy service charge-free tickets, and if you have a list of events you want to go to, could add up to huge savings.