Cutting Back on Your Expenses

A couple of times a year I go over our finances and try to get a good look at "where we are at".  One of the things I try to do at these times, is cut back on any unneeded or unnecessary monthly expenses.  Now I don't do this because of the economy, or that I am in financial trouble, I do it because it's a smart thing to do.

The easiest way really is to just go over my accounts online and take a detailed looks at the charges throughout the month.  Little things add up over time, and even though it just might be $5 or $10 a month, they will all add up eventually. 

Here is how I recently trimmed my expenses:

1. Cell phone.  I pay roughly a $100 a month for my iPhone plan with AT&T.  I have about 1000 or so minutes per month plus all the other goodies that are included with the plan.  I looked at my bill for the past six months and looked at my monthly usage.  Come to realize I was only using a couple hundred of minutes per month, and I had over 5000 rollover minutes accumulated.  So what did I do?  Went back online, and changed my rate plan to a lower one, which still gives me plenty of minutes, but also cuts my bill by about $30 a month.
   
2. Gym.  My wife and I signed up for a gym about 7 months ago, and haven't been in about 4 months.  Mainly because we got a treadmill at home and that is all we ever did at the gym anyway's.  Sent cancellation letter, and that will save about $20 a month.
   
3. Cable.  We had a premium channel package on our cable network, and pretty much never use it.  Called BrightHouse and removed it.  A savings of $10 a month.
   
4. Xbox Live.  I use Xbox Live very often, so canceling it is out of the question.  However, I was paying the fee month to month at $7.95 per month.  That's about $95 a year, so I called and canceled the service, and bought a pre-paid Xbox Live card on sale for $25, which gives me a whole year of service.  About $8 saved per month.

Now these are just four examples that I used.  There were many more expenses I cut, but just from these listed up here I am saving almost $70 a month.  Not bad for just using common sense and evaluating ways you can cut the money you spend.