Chuck, hello, I'm your host, Mr. Chuck, a retired accountant turned truck driver, I reduced my debt in a relatively short period of time. Debt reduction to achieve financial freedom takes commitment, confidence, determination, saving money. Tips. Need help in saving money. Here are some tips to get started. This is nothing new. This is something that, if you have some common sense, you probably already figured out. But by saving money is not that difficult. The first thing you have to do is prioritize where your money is going. And what do I mean by that? Well, if you want to save money, the first thing you got to do is know where your money is going. Therefore you should be tracking all the money coming in and going out of your household. The second thing you need to do is have some type of budget so you know how much is going where on a monthly basis. Once you have that done, in order to save more money, you need to reduce your spending. But what spending am I talking about? Well, most of the professionals gonna say your discretionary spending, that's money that you spend, such as going out to a restaurant to eat instead of eating home, or stuff you spend on a hobby or entertainment, that is part of it. But another way you can save more money is to look at your needs and try to reduce what you're spending on your needs down to the minimum amount possible. So what it what am I talking about? Your needs are the things that you pay every month in order to survive, housing, transportation and food. How much are you paying for those three categories? And can you cut your spending in any or all three categories? Let's start with housing. Let's say you bought a home. You're not renting, so you have a home the mortgage. The only way you can reduce your mortgage payment is to either refinance it and borrow less, which is probably not a good option for most people, because the mortgage rates are higher now than they were a couple years ago. So you don't really want to finance to Ohio a higher interest rate. Your real estate taxes are set by the government. There's not much control whether they can vote against any real estate tax increases that come up on your ballot. Good luck with that, and you can look for cheaper or different homeowners insurance that gives you the same coverage for a lesser amount. The only other place you can save would be your utilities in the summertime. Raise your thermostat higher in the winter time, put your thermostat lower so you're cooling less and heating less if you don't have good insulation or bad windows and stuff like that. That's a long term project that you can upgrade to help reduce your energy spending. That's going to take some money. The projects you do on your home, such as maintenance and or upgrades that you can control that a little bit based on how much you can afford at the time that you're don't want to get something done your transportation instead of having that brand new car that costs 30, $40,000 with a 800 or $1,000 a month car payment. Sell it if you can get out from under it without costing you too much. Buy a good used car that you can pay cash for. Have no car payment. You know, you pay less for the car. You can afford to do more maintenance on it, as something would break or need to be repaired. If you don't have a $1,100 car payment, you have a $300 car payment, that's $800 you freed up monthly that you can put somewhere else, and I'm suggesting most of that into savings food. Instead of going out to eat, cook all your food at home, try to save as much as possible. I'm not saying don't ever go out to eat again. I'm just saying, instead of doing it. Every day or once a week. Try to minimize it down to once a month or on special occasions. Same thing with clothes. If you're one of those persons that spends a lot of money on clothes, quit doing that. What do you do with all the old clothes? Are you giving it to charity? Well, that may be a tax deduction for some it's not really a great tax deduction, but it's better than nothing. But why you keep buying more clothes if you haven't wore out the old ones, and especially if they're still in fashion? So you need to look at ways you can reduce your spending cross the board, that's going to help you put money into your savings account. I have an article here eight simple ways to save money. Number one is record your expenses that's tracking include savings in your budget. Part of your budget should be $1 amount that you're going to put into savings every month, and then automate that so it happens automatically, whether it's a certain amount every payday or once a month at a particular time a month, you feel safe transfer money to your savings account that's not needed to cover some expense coming up. Find ways to reduce your spending so they're not saying anything here that I aren't set goals. What are you saving for? Are you saving for a new car or for a house or children's education or retirement, pick the right tools, make it automatic, and then watch it grow. I don't know how watching your savings grow is going to help you increase your savings. That's what I'm seven, eight minutes into this, and I pretty much covered everything I need to cover. Use common sense. Look for ways to reduce your spending, especially on your needs. Cell phone, for example, is a good place. You can look for another plan that's less per month that gives you the same coverage. Do you need that coverage? Level of coverage? Maybe you can cut back on it and save some money there. Cable TV is a big waste of money. Switch do away with cable TV if you still have that, and do away with it. Go to streaming, but limit yourself to one or two streaming services, so pick the ones that are gonna save you money and provide the entertainment that you have and you'll can. You can save $100 or more a month if you keep your streaming under control. So there's a couple more tips on how to reduce your spending. Every year you should be comparing your insurance plans and see what's else out there for the same plan. Can you get a cheaper price with your cell phone? It's the same thing. Do away with subscriptions you no longer using. Do away with things that you know that you're paying for that you no longer use, whether it's a gym membership or antivirus software for your computer or whatever the case, that's where tracking is going to help you, because if you know where your money is going, you're gonna see some of these things pop up when you enter it into your software, and you'll say, Oh, why am I paying for that? I'm paying for this two times a month. What's going on with that? You can investigate it and cancel one of them. That's the best way to reduce your spending, is knowing where your money is going. The second way is looking at your monthly budget for the dollar amounts that you're spending, housing, transportation, food, clothing, entertainment, credit cards, whatever the case would be, see where your money is going. Look at the different categories, and can where can I reduce some spending? Now, if you're on my debt reduction plan, that's your spending. You're using your credit card. Should been done. So anything that's going there should be payments, which, over time, will reduce your spending, because it'll go away, you'll pay it off, and then they'll give you more money you can save, and then increase your emergency fund faster. For those of you that listen past episodes, you pretty much know what I'm talking. About you need to set some goals. Define what you want to save for, whether it's a short term, long term, to make the savings easier and more meaningful. If you're trying to reduce your debt, that's when your goals I want to pay off all my credit card debts. I want to pay off all my card loans. I want to pay off my house loan. Whatever it is, set short term goals, credit card, first car, second, personal loans. Automate your savings use tools or apps to transfer funds regularly to a savings account, making it a habit and reducing the likelihood of overspending. This comes in handy if you're one of those persons that looks at their checking account, sees the balance, and so I can buy that, and you buy something, and then later on in the month, you come up short on something you have to pay for. Quit doing that if you automate your savings. And you know you can put $50 a month into a savings account. Do it if you get paid twice a month, do $25 every payday. Do $10 every if you get paid weekly,$10 every payday, whatever it is, set it up automatically. Get it out of your checking account, and you'll never miss it, and your savings will grow. Cut back on discretionary spending. Identify areas where you can reduce expenses. Says, cooking at home instead of buying lunch, skipping expensive beverages or canceling subscription services. I guess expensive beverage would be that latte in the morning that you stop at the coffee shop to buy at five bucks a shot. Do it at home, make your own use cash instead of credit cards. Remember, we're not we're trying to quit using the credit cards. So using cash payments cash help you stick to your budget and to avoid overspending. But if you're on a debt reduction plan, you're not using any credit so you have to use cash or cash equivalent, which would be a debit card, if you ingest your budget regularly track your expenses and income to identify areas for improvements and make adjustments that's needed. So if you cut back on some things you're paying for that was included in your monthly budget, says some subscriptions, such as cable TV or maybe you had 10 streaming services, and you cut most of them out, reduce your budget for that category down by the amounts you were paying, because you're no longer going to be paying it. Start small. Begin with small changes, like saving $1,168 by brewing coffee at home, and gradually build up larger savings goal? Prioritize needs over one, focus on saving for essential expenses like emergency fund before allow allocating funds for discussion discretionary spending. Remember, saving money is a long term process that requires discipline, patience and persistence. By implementing these strategies and stay in committee, you can achieve your financial goals and build a more secure financial future. So start small. Only use cash to buy things now this are items such as going to the grocery store or going out for entertainment. If you know you have $100 for entertainment a month, take$100 cash, stick it in an envelope, write entertainment on it. And once it's gone, your entertainment for the month is done. You can carry the unused portion forward into the next month, you cannot use the next month entertainment budget for the current month. So that's a way to start controlling yourself on your spending. You have to be focused. So that's why tracking all the stuff that's coming in and going out of your household, financial stuff, money coming in your checking account, and everything you're spending on will help you get an idea where your money's going. And once you can focus on that, you can see the items where you can cut back where you may be overspending. Maybe it's going out to dinner, going out to eat too much. Maybe it's too much entertainment. It could be anything. Maybe you're spending too much on a hobby that you realize you're not doing well. If I do this hobby and I got this much money, then I can sell something and I'll get some money back. But that may be true. But how long is that going to take you? You need to control the spending side of it, because the income side of it may be months away, and if it's something that keeps you busy and keeps you from spending money while that's okay, but you still has to put a limit. What you can do every month because you have a limit on the amount of money you have. It's not because it's you can. Don't have the ability to do it, you don't have the money to do it. So you have to limit yourself and pace yourself based on your income and your other expenses. Remember, your needs come first. You got to pay those things every month in order to survive. Once you get those paid off, then your discretionary comes second. You don't necessarily need them. You don't need may want a lot of things, but you don't necessarily need a lot of things, and that's where most of your control is going to come in. If you can quit a bad habit of smoking cigarettes, smoking cigars or drinking a 12 pack every day, then you'd be able to save some money. I know it's kind of obvious, but I gotta state the obvious, because some people listening might be struggling with trying to save money, but they're smoking three packs of cigarette a day. That's how much is that? $15 or more. Cut back to two packs, then cut back to one package, be better for your health and definitely better for your wallet. That's just what you need to do. You have to have a mindset to I want to say money. Where can I cut back on my spending? Where can i What can I do to limit my spending so that I can have more money for myself, so I can buy something more expensive later on down the road, or I can get my debt under control so I'd be able to save more money faster so I have a decent retirement, decent amount for my children's at college education, decent amount for a down payment for a new car, or to buy that vacation home or luxury yacht, whatever the case would be, you need to pace yourself based on the income that you're currently have in your household, and then limit your spending to that. So if you want to put it simple, spend less than what you make is as simple as that. I'll be back in one moment with my final thoughts are the articles I refer to in my episodes have a link in my show notes if you're interested in checking out the software that I personally use to get my data control, it's in my show notes under shop financial you need to copy and paste the link and it'll take you to the website. Any questions, you can just contact me through that particular website. If you value this podcast and I like to make a contribution, I had a contribution link in my show notes. Also get whatever you feel is appropriate for the information I am providing. I thank everyone for listening to my podcast. Okay? For review? No. You have to be tracking. You have to have a budget. You got to know what you're spending on your needs, and you got to control your discretionary spending. Anything that's not a need your basic needs are housing, transportation and food, anything else would be discretionary which you want to control the most your needs, you need to review and see any of those things that you're paying on a regular basis. Can it be reduced? Can you get a better price for the same service after you do all that, it's just a matter of controlling your discretionary spending. How bad do you want to save the money for whatever the reason would be, how bad you want to pay off that credit card debt? How bad you want to get completely out of debt? It all is in your hand. You have to be in the mindset, I don't want to spend any more money than I necessarily have to in order to live a comfortable life. And before you buy anything that costs more than a couple $100 or even $100 you gotta ask yourself, Why am I buying it? Do I need it? I've gotten by without it so far. Why do I need it now? Can I do without it? Give yourself some time, at least three days a week, two weeks. The larger the item, the longer the period you should wait before you make the final decision. Special. If you something you really want, maybe you can get by without it. Maybe you buy without buying something similar. Don't cost as much. Do you have to buy a brand name instead of a no name? There's multiple ways to reduce your spending. You just have to look for and one of the ways is, if you paid off your credit cards, do not close them out, because, for number one, it will hurt your credit rating, because your credit to income ratio larger now, because you don't owe as much on a credit card and you have available credit that you're not using, believe it or not, creditors love that, so don't cancel it. Down the road, you're gonna get an offer to transfer balance, and maybe it's a three or four or 5% fee to transfer balance, but you're gonna get no interest for 12 months, 18 months, whatever their offer would be, I always had 18 months. They might have reduced it to 12 months, then you can transfer part of your balance off a high interest credit card there, and you'll recoup the balance transfer fee within one or two months by not paying the interest on that dollar amount of money that you would have, but only transfer amount based on what you can pay off and the time period that they're giving you. Because if you don't pay it off, they go back to day one and recalculate all the interest and add it to it, and you don't want that. You're trying to avoid paying interest. So you don't want that, because they usually have a high rate of interest, so you don't want to be paying that. My next couple episodes, I'm going to talk about tracking in detail. I know I've done that very many times in the past. I'm going to talk about setting up a budget the easy way. Say, I do this in the order to make it easier for the average person to accomplish these things. You do tracking, and then you do a budget. Now, once you get your budget down, then you do your debt reduction plan. You can put that into play, or you can do it all at once as you go, but over a period of 30 to 60 days, you should have your tracking down, you should have a budget in place, and you should be working on your debt reduction. That's what we're going to talk about in the next three episodes. I know it's the same thing, and it's boring. It's boring for me, maybe, and after the next three that'll give me 10 more episodes, and I have five years in disappointing I'm thinking about quit doing this podcast when I hit the five year mark. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do, but I'm gonna try to make it so that I have at least five years of episodes on how to reduce your debt and how to gain wealth by debt reduction. Maybe I'll throw an episode in there to what to do once your debt is coming down. Over time, as your debt come down, your emergency fund, minimum balance should be increasing, stay tuned for more information. That's all I have for today. You.