Hello, I'm your host, Mr. Chuck, I retired accountant turned truck driver, I reduce my debt in a relatively short period of time, debt reduction, to achieve financial freedom takes commitment, confidence determination. The first step in Saving money is reducing the spending, then keeping spending under control will help increase the savings rate, getting debt, reduce, reduce spending, and increasing income all help and work together to increase savings. Need I state the obvious for for those of you who have trouble saving money, maybe you're have a lot of debt, maybe you had a spending problem. But the first step, and an increase in your savings is to recognize that you have a spending problem, about 75 to 80% of your savings and getting your debt under control as mental. A just got to decide is something you want to do, then you got to take the steps to ensure that you are successful. I have two links. And my show notes. Four ways to say money. America saved that or 54 ways to say money, and better money habits thought Bank of america.com ways to say money. I'm starting now on the eight ways to say money's from the Bank of America. And the number one thing you need to do is record your expenses, which I've been talking about endlessly. Getting an app to record your expenses, he also recorded a little bit of your income, but mostly it's recording your expenses and getting them into the correct category. So you can create a report and do your control center. Some people call that a budget. So that's number one. include savings within your budget. Yes. But if you're working on a debt reduction plan, that your savings is part of that. We call it an emergency fund. If you have an emergency fund, and something bad happens, you'll have some cash available, so you could quit using credit at all comes together, and then find ways to cut spending. If you can't say as much as you like it might be time to cut back on expenses. Identify non essentials, such as entertainment and dining out that you can spend less on look for ways to save on your fixed monthly expenses, such as your car insurance or cell phone plan as well. Other D ideas for trimming every day expenses include search for free activities, review recurring charges, cancel subscriptions and memberships you don't use, especially if they renew automatically determine the cost of eating out versus cooking a home. Plan to Eat most of your meals at home and research local restaurant deals for nights. You want to treat yourself. wait before you buy. When tempted to buy a non essential purchase wait a few days, you may realize the item was something you want it rather than need it and you can develop a plan to save for it. That's like the 24 hour rule or in this case, it was a few days a two day rule. Before you make a purchase over a certain dollar amount. Let's say it's$500. You need to set aside and think, gee one, is it something you need? Or is it something you want? If it's something you want? How quickly do you want it? If it's a want, you really don't need it. Therefore you can set a little bit of money aside and save up for it and pay cash therefore, you're not creating new debt. When you're keeping with an your debt reduction plan. Set savings goal and pay yourself first. One of your goals should be your emergency fund and you need to have three to six months worth of expenses saved up in there. So if something bad happens, you have the money to get by on for three to six months and you got to determine your financial priorities. After your expenses and incomes your goals will likely to have bigger impact on how you allocate your savings. For example, if you know you're going to need to replace your car in the near future, you should start putting away money for one now. But be sure to remember long term goals, it's important that planning for retirement doesn't take a backseat to shorter term needs. Learning how to priority prioritize your savings goals can give you a clearer idea of how to allocate your savings and pick the right tools. There are many savings and investment accounts suitable for long, short and long term goals. If you just don't pick one, there are many savings and investment accounts suitable short and long term goals. And if you don't have to pick just one, look carefully at all the options and consider balance minimums fees and interest rate risk, and how soon you need the money. So you can choose the mix that will help you best say for your goals. For short term goals, you should have a savings account, and that's where your emergency funds should reside. A certificate of deposit which locks your money in for a fixed period of time at a rate is typically higher than a savings account. Don't go any longer than six months. Remember, this is short term. So a three months one month, CD is what you're focusing on for this long term goals. You go to FDIC insured individual retirement accounts, or a 529. Plans were surtax effected savings account, security, such as stocks or mutual funds, these investment products are available through investment accounts with a broker dealer, make savings automatic, set it up. So it's an automatic transfer from your checking into your savings. You do that after you get your debt under control. So if you have credit cards you're trying to pay down, don't do this on URfi do an automatic saving in this case, make it a small amount. But if you transfer it into your savings account, and then you have to transfer it back into your checking account to pay bills, don't do any automatic savings, you only allowed to make eight withdrawals a month out of your savings account before the banks has gone to start penalizing you. And that's a federal rule. Watch your savings grow. So over time, if you stay vigilant, your savings will grow. Now, the most important part of this episode is once you are tracking your expenses, you identify you had a problem, you set some goals, you started tracking your expenses, and you created a budget or a control center. And your three, four months and to doing that and you're keeping everything up to date. So you're more aware of what's going on and your financial life. Now what can you do, because you're not happy with the amount of money that you're setting aside for savings is going way too slow? Well, at first, it will be slow. Especially if you have three or four credit cards that you have an outstanding balance on, you have one or two car payments, you got one or two mortgage payments. Yes, it's gonna move slow because a lot of your money is tied up in making those monthly payments. That's why he should only make the minimum payment on all your debt as part of my debt reduction plan. So that you can free up a little bit of money to put into your savings to build up that emergency fund and then continue building it up. But what else can you do? You want through everything you cancel some subscriptions that you're no longer using? What else can you do? Well, first of all, let's start by looking at your needs. You need to pay these things every month. You got utilities. How can you reduce utility bills? Well, if it's the summertime and you use an AC, set your thermostat to hire if you do not have a programmable thermostat. That's the first step in getting doing saving on your utilities. Go out Find yourself a decent programmable thermostat and install it yourself is not difficult. And then set the program so that when you're not home, yours your AC settings is a lot higher. The right before you get home, you lower it down to degree, so at least it spills coal in the house, when you first walk in, remember, the AC is going to keep the humidity out of the house. So it's gonna feel cooler, even if it's sat at 78 degrees, it's gonna feel cooler, when it's 92. Outside, if it's fairly humid, you do the reverse, for hating you set the thermostat lower when you're not home. And when you're are sleeping, you have the lowest settings when you're not home. And when you are sleeping, you set the lowest settings. And then you don't keep the thermostat at 72 or 73. Set it at 68. For every couple of the degrees, you're under 72, you're gonna reduce your utility bill significantly. And set it up and leave it alone. Another simple thing you can do to reduce your spending is bank fees. Make sure you have the minimum balance and your checking or savings at all times so you don't get a monthly fee. Only use ATMs at your bank that you belong to do not pay ATM fees because it might only be $2.50 $3. Like my bank charges me $2 or $3 for using a ATM that's not theirs. And then the bank through a use the ATM is charging me $3. So it's not a$3 charge is a $6 charge. Avoid using foreign ATMs and that's foreign to your particular bank. Do not pay those fees. Pay everything on time and avoid paying late penalty fees. That can save you some money right there. Now, if you're already doing that's not going to save you anything, but don't pay things late. And avoid paying ATM fees, avoid, keep enough money in your checking or savings account. So you don't have to pay the monthly bank fee. So emergency fund is a must chances are you've been told that yikes overwhelming. So start, start small Think big. And keeping that with that we recommend starting with an emergency fund goal of just$500. And then gradually over time, increasing it to 1015 102,000. I would say if you're have a credit card problem and debt, you're trying to take care of keep it no higher than $1,500. Because you're going to build it up to three to $4,000. So you're gonna have a bigger emergency fund for that period of time. And then when you take the amount of money greater than 1500 ours out of that savings account and apply it to a debt, you still have the minimum of $1,500 for your emergency fund. And most likely that's going to help you avoid paying those monthly bank fees. Set up automatically set up automatic send is the easiest most effective way to say that pulls out extra cash out of sight out of mind. He only do this. If you have a budget, you know that you have enough money in your checking account to pay the bills until next payday. Or if not leave it in your checking account. Start saving for retirement. The earlier you start saving for retirement, the smaller can mount can be but the more money you're gonna have. And at the end when you retire. Use a 24 hour rule. Avoid purchasing expensive or unnecessary items on impulse was self imposed 24 Hour Rule for any non essential item, wait 24 hours before purchasing is perfect for online shopping where your items can simply be added to your cart to be purchased later. One way to save if you do the 24 hour rule, and if you're shopping online, put it in your cart. Then when you leave the website they may offer you a discount before to purchase that before you leave. You got to avoid that. Go ahead and leave the website. Come back. Think about it. Do you need it? If you decide you don't need it, go back into that website and take it out. Remove it from your shopping cart. And when you go back in, look for if there's a discount today offer additional discounts if you buy it. So way to save money, have a savings plan, those savings plans are twice as likely just see that's where America saves comes in. Okay now, things that you pay that are a necessity, says utilities try to say your thermostat, cell phones, or phone bills could be a landline. It's kind of a necessity this day and age. But you need to check at least once a year to see if there's other plants available, that are cheaper, that you can save five or $10 a month on, it's a very little amount. But over time, it adds up. If you save $10 a month, as$120 a year, not much. But over five years. That's what $600 And our adds up and a hope you get your debt under control. So look for better plans for your cell phone, better plans for your cable bill, and quit paying for cable. If you have cable TV, and you're paying more than $100 a month, cut that out. Look for some streaming services, where you can watch the same things you're already watching. They may be for less than $50 a month. That's a big place where you could say a lot of money, you're paying for Internet service, use your internet service to the max by streaming more of your TV. But watch out streaming can get out of control, limit your streaming to no more than two channels at a time. And what I used to do was I was stream a for three to six months, I would cancel it, I would go to be stream it there for three to six months, then go back to a everything I've set up is already there. Because streaming servers are month to month, you can cancel them at any time. So if you like football stream of saying something that provides you with your football channels, and then when football season's over, cancel it. And then you go back to streaming movies. But while you're doing football, don't stream the movies, try to keep the number of streaming services to no more than three. And that will save you some money, pay your bills on auto pay that will help you make sure they're paid on time so you don't get late payment fees and or additional entrance fees. I do that because I was tending to start to forget which bills to pay. So I set up most of my necessity bills was Ruby, basically my utilities and my streaming services. I set that up on auto pay and it definitely took a lot of the thinking out of it. Use your local library to save money on using books and stuff. browse online for free or low cost local entertainment. Volunteer of festivals, costume festivals and events often offer free admission to event volunteers. Volunteer little time get in the festival for free. And that's one thing I don't like doing I hate to pay to go in somewhere where the only thing I'm gonna do is spend money. I don't do that. It's never too soon to start saving for college. So the sooner you start saving, the more you're gonna have food saving tips. This is the 50 thing I'm going through, pack your lunch, take leftovers from the previous dinner to lunch the next day. Coming out to eat commit to eating out fewer times each month, say maybe only one time a week. You take water when you go to restaurants and I've done that for years. Only order water instead of that iced tea or instead of that soda and you'll save two $3 Now maybe even more. You're there for the food you're not there for the beverage. Make sure you take your leftovers home. use less water at home you can stall low flow showerheads and faucet aerators to reduce your water usage and water cost. And in my case that also the less water you use, the less your sewer is gonna be ditched paper, cut out paper towels and use cloth and napkins that you can simply wash and reuse and a simple way to say low the temperature on your hot water heater to 120 degrees. For every 10 degrees reduction in temperature, you can save up to 5% on water heating costs. A laundry detergent use everyday items you already have around your house to clean works for many, you'd be surprised what you can do is vinegar and lemon. Use coupons to buy things that you need, but not things you that you want. I find that coupons are hard to come by nowadays. Also, Auto Home Insurance, compare rates yearly check when you travel, take the lowest airfare you can find. That's basically what it's all about. Look for ways to reduce your spending and how you can say money, then your savings will increase. And once your savings increase if you're on a debt reduction plan, and if you're following my plan, you're get your debt paid off a little bit faster. And once that first credit cards paid off, the second one's gonna be a little bit faster. The third and fourth ones are going to be faster and faster. It's like a Domino's is starting slow. But it's gonna speed up, the longer you do it. I'll be back in one moment with my final thoughts. If you're interested in learning about an online software that helped myself get out of debt, it does tracking, budgeting, and keeps track of all your assets and all your debt. And even tells you how much and when to transfer money into your savings account. And how much and when to transfer money to your debt and which debts to pay off in order. First. It's not cheap. It's a one time payment. But it will definitely be an investment, something and yourself and an investment in your personal financial life. If you're interested, send me an email at reduce debt increase wealth@gmail.com. And I'll send you the information about this online software that works great for me. If you're serious about getting out of debt, or if you're serious about increasing your savings, for whatever reason you're saving and for doesn't matter, you got to start tracking all your income and all your expenses come in and out of your checking, savings. And all your credit cards wherever money is being spent, you need to keep track of it. And then you need to set up your control center. So that you can view on a monthly basis how you're doing compare to the previous month. So if you're cutting back, it should indicate that and your control center. If you rig know if you got newer rates on your cell phone plant, it's gonna take 30 to maybe 60 days before flows through, but you'll see a reduction and your control center. If you cut out subscriptions, you're no longer using it. You cut back your spending, you reduce your entertainment, you you start eating at home or instead of going out you bought a programmable thermostat and you reduce temperatures that you keep in your house either cool or heat it so that when you're not home or when you're sleeping is at a lower or higher depending on what it jouin temperature so that you are all heating and cooling the house when you're are awake and active at home. What I do on my cooling is I allow it to go up to at least 80 degrees during the day. But it takes it to three or four in the afternoon because my house is well insulated. And then right before I get home, roughly around six o'clock I cooled it down to degrees. I leave it there until dark because after dark, the outside temperatures gonna be reduced quickly. And once the outside temperature is cooler out, and then it costs less to cool down the house. I call it all the way down to 72 degrees for the nighttime and it doesn't run all that much at night, but it takes a long time to get back up to 80 degrees in the afternoon. That's just one example I do. Check your rates, your plans on a yearly basis on your insurance, your car insurance, your house insurance, all your different insurances. Check a yearly on cell phone plans to see if you can get a better rate. Deal or and try to avoid buying a new smartphones every year. They're good for four or five years. Use them for four or five years and then buy one. And when you absolutely need to assist the little things you watch out for, like not going to a foreign aid ATM. To withdraw cash from your checking account. Only go to your bank, ATMs or ATMs. You know they're not charging you a fee. Because that fee adds up over time. If you would go back one month that you wasn't paying attention. How much did you pay in ATM fees 50$100. That's that much money you could have in your savings account or that much more money. You had been able to pay down your debt. It all adds up. It's the little things in life you got to watch out for because they'll add up, they accumulate and before you know it, you're out of money. You're using credit again, and you're debt reduction. Plan this one out the door because you wasn't paying attention to the details. Keep up the good work. Pay attention to the details. Be frugal, and not being cheap. You're being frugal. Use the 24 hour rule on once. Things you may want to buy but don't necessarily need. Think about it. Put it off for 24 hours. And then if it's something you still want, figure out a way to buy it without using credit. put money aside, say money up and buy it when you have the money. Maybe it'll go down in price if you're lucky. So keep at it and be glad you did.