Flickr/alwaysshooting
All you have to do is peek into my purse — which holds everything from bottles of bubble solution to receipts from 2011 — to realize organization isn’t my strong suit.
And I never minded — until I became a full-time freelancer and realized my disorganized lifestyle was costing me time, money and sanity.
The tipping point came recently on a weeklong vacation. Our first day away, I got a text: A food subscription box had arrived. Seconds later, my phone vibrated again. A second food subscription box from a different company had also been delivered. I thought I had skipped the week, but apparently I hadn’t.
Each was $ 60, and I couldn’t help but think of the $ 120 wasted. While I was eventually able to pass along the boxes to neighbors, I realized I needed to shore up my money strategy. Here’s what I did — and how much I saved.
1. I cut unused subscriptions.
As soon as I got home from that vacation, I did what many financial pros suggest: I printed out my credit and debit statements for the past month, took out a highlighter, and marked every auto-charge. I finally saw that with two $ 60-subscriptions a week, I was spending a $ 480 a month on meal delivery!
Instead of skipping weeks (I was unreliable about that, clearly) I nixed them altogether.
I also cut all the smaller charges that added up: an $ 8.99 subscription to a TV channel I never watched, a $ 15 subscription to a music-streaming channel, and a $ 20 subscription to a dating service I hadn’t used in over a year.
Amount Saved: $ 524 a month
2. I signed up for rewards programs.
Flickr / Mike Mozart
Every time I ran to my local pharmacy for toilet paper or milk, I was asked to sign up for their rewards program — $ 5 off every $ 50 spent. I always said no because I was in a hurry, but with my newfound “get my finances in order” mindset, I finally opted in. I could easily pocket $ 5 each week.
I signed up for a few other rewards programs around town and realized that “just” $ 5 could lead to significant savings by month’s end. I also appreciated the in-store discounts — why spend $ 5 on cereal when the customer-card price is $ 2.50?
Amount Saved: $ 50 a month
3. I bought in bulk.
I’d already gotten savvy to bulk-buying diapers, but I realized so much of my spending was going to the same items all the time. Instead of making a weekly run for Cheddar Bunnies, apple sauce pouches, paper towels and seltzer, I bought in bulk via Amazon Fresh and PrimePantry and saved $ 5 to $ 10 on each item vs. buying á la carte.
Amount Saved: $ 50 a month
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
