Follow these tips to save money while maintaining your standard of living. Reducing debt and avoiding bankruptcy doesn’t have to be a pain. We have some simple budgeting tips to get you on your way to a debt free life, while not destroying your current lifestyle in the process. Look for things in your current lifestyle that you can do with out and ship them from your life. Make smart decisions on how you can reduce your expenditure while you pay off your debts and look for extra ways to make money to reduce your debts. Call 02 9011 7919 today to get more budgeting tips and information.

1. Follow A Budget | Budgeting Sydney

The humble budget is one of the best things you can do for your finances. Write it up, do the maths to make sure that it sets you in a positive direction away from bankruptcy and follow it without fail.

Without fail? ... But can’t I just break it once in a while?

Well the key to a good budget is to make it realistic, so that you can follow it all the time. This is because the key to a good habit is consistency. Budgets were invented to get you out of your bad spending habits and into more financially stable ones.

A flexible budget allows for you to break your budget every once in a while, but only for things you need more than for things that you want. For example spending money on car repairs or medical bills is a necessary expense, where as purchasing a new TV just to upgrade from your old one is not a smart purchase. Flexible budgeting allows you spend when you need to but keeps you in check when your considering luxury items.

2. Cook Extra And Refrigerate Half | Saving Money Melbourne

When do we spend money on food? When we’re tired or out of time and there’s nothing in the fridge. That’s why the trick is to cook enough for the next meal or the next several meals so that you never have to spend $40+ on fast foods with questionable ingredients.

Also, you end up using up more of the ingredients that you have already purchased. Using up ingredients that go out of date and would have need to be thrown out is a smart solution as it stops you wasting money that you've already spent.

3. Don’t Buy Coffee | Money Saving Tips Hobart

Coffee from coffee shops has one of the highest markups out of any of the foods and beverages. A coffee costs about $3 whereas the ingredients cost only 3¢.

This means that you can save a lot of money by getting caffeinated in different ways. Instant coffee is an order of magnitude cheaper per cup. A coffee machine is a fantastic investment for connoisseurs. And if you’re not a connoisseur, you can get astronomical savings per caffeine dosage by switching to caffeine tablets or anhydrous caffeine powder (though be careful not to take too much).

4. Sell Your Old Belongings | Avoiding Bankruptcy Brisbane

Most people have a tonne of old stuff that they no longer need and probably never needed stashed away in some place, never to see the light of day again. It offers them no benefit to have these things in their day-to-day lives but when it comes to getting rid of them they feel a sudden overwhelming sentimentalism for them.

You can get money by selling these old, underused things, that would otherwise sit in your apartment or home, clogging up your hallway.

A lot of them are barely used, and the internet makes second hand buying quite a breeze. Start a side project listing as much of this stuff as you can on Gumtree, eBay or a similar website and your income will start looking like you have a second job.

5. Pay With Cash | Fight Credit Card Debt Perth

Credit and debit card interest rates can be draconian—as you probably know. Rates over 20% are common. Is the convenience really worth that much? Do you really feel financially safer walking around carrying less cash than paying these kinds of rates?

The answer is: you shouldn’t. Boycott the card and use cash where you can. This makes it easier to keep track of your finances and spending and also means you are less likely to overspend. It also means you avoid interest and falling further into debt.

6. Eat Less Meat | Frugal Living Adelaide

In many ways, Australians eat too much meat. We eat way more than we nutritionally should, so the caloric and cholesterol effects have negative effects on our health. And we eat way more than we financially should—because meat is by far the most expensive part of almost any meal. It adds to the price of the shopping list and the restaurant menu.

The upshot of this is: there are plenty of delicious foods that you can eat instead of meat or with meat, so that you eat less of it in the end.

7. Use The Cheapest Methods Of Communication | Improving Finances Brisbane

Often, in our modern era, we can choose from multiple options, how we want to message someone. Always be aware of the cheapest option. If your landline is cheaper than your mobile, choose that. If your mobile has an unlimited plan, choose that. If the person responds quickly, you can try text message or even social media for the cheapest option.

8. Don’t Impulse Buy | Good Spending Habits Sydney

The trick is to wait a week, even a month before making a purchase, depending on how expensive it is and how serious is your debt situation. This fights the urge to buy on impulse. Wait till the heat is over, you’re thinking straight, you’ve had time to think it over and if it still seams like a good idea, go for it.

9. Don’t Waste Money On Brands | Avoid the Debt Spiral Adelaide

If a statistician tallied up all the money people could save by switching to generic and home brands, even cheaper brands, the figure would be enormous. This is the amount of money that people spend on brands. When you buy a product, consider: am I paying this much for the product or the brand? If it’s the later, consider switching to one of the brandless alternatives. In the supermarket, these are the home brands. In the pharmacy, these are the generic medicines. Often the quality is equal to the brand name products, especially in medicine which is a perfect example of brand power because the generic medicines are chemical equivalents. Exactly the same just without the brand.

10. Buy Next Christmas’s Presents In The Boxing Day Sales | Spending Tips Melbourne

This is a saving tip with foresight. Right after Christmas, in the Boxing Day sales buy next year’s presents. You’ll save a lot of money if you can afford to buy even a few people’s presents this time round.

These tips were selected from our entire corpus of money saving tips for being simple, easy and best of all, they don’t impinge on your lifestyle.

Using These Tips And More To Get Out Of Debt

You can use these tips now to help you to start planning your budget, taking some of the recommendations into consideration. There are other things you will want to incorporate into your budget which is important as every flexible budget should also be more personal to your needs.

There is no point in planning a budget that you are unable to stick to and save. More importantly, if you do break your budget, you need to make sure that you don't give up all together. Reaching that perfect balance is difficult and might take a few tries, but as long as you stick to your guns and keep paying off your debts you are on the right track.

If you need help planning your budget, Get Out Of Debt Today is here to help. We can help you plan out your flexible budget, tailor made to your needs. If you are struggling financially and are looking for a way to get your finances back on track, then take a free consultation call with Get Out Of Debt Today to discuss your options and how we will be able to increase your savings to reduce your debts. With a number of years’ experience in the industry of financial counselling, you can be sure that you are getting the best results on offer. Call 02 9011 7919 today for an obligation free information call!