Expenses quickly add up, making the minutia of daily and monthly bills difficult to deal with if you’re living paycheck to paycheck. If you don’t have enough to cover your essential bills, you can reduce your nonessential spending by pausing subscription services and cutting back on unnecessary expenditures.
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Here are four nonessential bills to pause ASAP if you need to catch up financially.
Streaming services, food delivery memberships and software subscriptions typically come with a monthly fee that you can pause or cancel at any time. However, even a single subscription adds up over the course of a year but go seemingly unnoticed thanks to autopay.
For example, the standard Netflix subscription with ads costs $7.99 a month or nearly $96 per year. However, most people have more than one streaming subscription, and it’s estimated that on average people are spending about $69 a month on multiple subscriptions. That’s around $828 a year.
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Based on most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans spend roughly $3,933 per month on dining out categorized as food away from home. This means just by eating outside of your home you spend about $328 on a monthly average.
JourneyFoods also found that the average price per serving of a home-cooked meal was $4.31, while the average cost of eating out was $20.37.
Consider pausing professional services that you can do yourself instead, such as house cleaning, lawn care or pet grooming. For example, how much homeowners pay for a lawn care plan can be between $500 and $800 per year. This is a great edit down for your budget when trying to catch up on your finances.
You can temporarily adjust recurring allocations, such as 401(k) contributions and insurance, as well if you need some wiggle room financially. For instance, if you automatically contribute 10% of your paycheck to your 401(k), consider adjusting it to 7% for a few months to build up your savings.
The bottom line is that there are more ways to save in addition to pausing nonessential bills. Here are some key takeaways:
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Use up gift cards: Dig into your wallet and look for unused gift cards. You probably have at least one unused card. You can even sell them on third-party marketplaces for up to 85 cents on the dollar.
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Get an energy audit: Cut back on your energy bills by getting a professional energy audit or doing one yourself. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Americans waste up to $400 per year due to drafts, air leaks and outdated heating and cooling systems.
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Negotiate lower bills and interest rates: Many customers who ask for a lower interest rate on one of their credit cards succeed so it’s at least worth trying to negotiate costs as you have more power over your money than you realize.
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