You will never tame your debt monster without implementing some type of expense control. In fact, you should work to implement expense control even before looking into ways to increase income. This is because measures to implement expense control can serve to increase your disposable income which can then be used to reduce your debt. Let’s look at some of the ways you can implement expense control and start fighting your debt today.
Expense control starts by compiling a master list of all your obligations and debt. It’s probably best to build your list in some type of spreadsheet. By doing this you can sort the list by either due date or amount due while doing your expense control analysis. Make sure you list the automatic debits that you have set for various payees each month. These expenses tend to be forgotten and are the cause for many overdrafts when your checking account runs low. This causes degradation in expense control along with an increase in debt.
Try to convert all of your variable expenses into fixed ones. When they are fixed, they are much easier to fit into a budget which is necessary for effective expense control and debt reduction. For example, you could convert your current cellular phone plan into a prepaid plan in order to implement expense control on your mobile phone expenses. Utilities are a little harder when trying to implement expense control because of seasonal changes in usage. Try to go through a historical analysis with your utilities and budget how much to set aside based on an average over 12 months.
You will realize with expense control that you can do without more than you think. Now that you have all of your expenses listed, you can analyze carefully which ones you should cut back on in order to help with debt reduction. Expense control requires finding cheaper substitutes or cutting the expense item out altogether. If you can cut the expense of a second car, it will be quite effective towards your efforts for expense control. It will be extremely helpful if you are in debt over the second car. You will find in some cases that it is actually possible to have a two-earner family with only one automobile by using mass transit or even bicycling to work.
Restaurants are a big budget killer and do not help expense control. Restaurants are probably the first non-essential expense you should cut. A significant amount of credit card debt comes from restaurants. It really doesn’t take much to get up a little earlier and make your own breakfast if it will save you money and help with expense control and debt reduction. You can make eggs in the microwave oven if you are pressed for time. A sandwich for lunch might get dull but you can learn creative ways to spice it up.
Buying in bulk sometimes hurts budgeting and expense control. The problem with bulk buying is that it can be very expensive outlay of cash to buy more than you will actually use in a month. Oftentimes, people accumulate credit card debt to buy in bulk. You might be able to implement more expense control by using pay as you go. For example, you might want to buy a monthly bus pass and ride the bus once in awhile instead of drive. You’ll pay more for the pass but make but it will be beneficial for expense control if you make sure you use all of the allotted trips.