The Top 10 Ways to put your budget on a crash diet

Originally Submitted on 10/24/98.

At some time most of us need to tighten up our budget for a while. We may be saving for something we urgently need, or just trying to correct a situation that we have fallen into bit by bit. Crash diets are not to be advised for any great length of time. However, the more of the steps below you take, the faster you will gain your objective. It is often wise to set a time limit, or to apply the *rules* for alternate months, since too long a period of austerity can be detrimental to our quality of life.

1. Make your lunch and take it to work whenever possible, and try not to eat out in the evening or on weekends.

If you are spending just three dollars for lunch every work day you are spending almost eight hundred dollars a year on weekday lunches alone.

2. Keep track of ALL spending, even cash.

This includes what you spend on snack-, coffee- and soda-machines, parking, cigarettes, even the smallest incidentals. Total them weekly and monthly.

3. Always take a list with you when you shop.

Challenge yourself to deviate from it as little as possible, and to stay away from store departments and grocery aisles from which you do not need anything.

4. When you get home, separate out all the things you bought that were not on your list and/or that you do not truly need--calculate their cost and learn a lesson for next time.

If the total is significant, decide whether you should return them.

5. Discard all catalogs and newspaper inserts unread (except for sales of things that are absolute essentials).

Think of them as self-serving invitations to join the cult of overspending. Once you start reading you will usually find in them something that you absolutely cannot do without, even though you have lived without it thus far.

6. When you decide you absolutely, positively cannot live without something, or that it would increase the quality of your life so much that it is worth the expense, try living without it for one more month.

Then reconsider.

7. Never use malls or window shopping as a way to use up spare time or to socialize with friends while they shop.

Few people have the will-power to exercise *won't-power* in these situations, especially when their companions are spending money.

8. Check all the services to which you subscribe and which contain extras that you accepted because it was a good deal but which you don't really need.

How many movie channels, phone services, etc. do you really need or use? Check how much you could save if you downsized.

9. Use up old stuff before you buy new stuff.

Round up all spare, half-used and extra items in your home and use them up before buying new ones, including shampoos you bought on impulse, the decorative soaps that may be gathering dust in the bathroom, and those cans of soup on the back of the shelf.

10. Calculate what you are spending per month on interest charges on credit card debt or other loans, and late charges from not being organized in paying your bills.

The total should motivate you to check out alternative and cheaper sources of credit and, whatever else you do, make paying it off your first priority.

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