Cutting Costs Can Significantly Increase Your Income
By Lori Redfield, Fri Dec 9th
As a work at home Mother, I know the value of a deal. Any smartbusiness person knows that the best way to make money is to SAVEmoney. Recently my husband quit his 9 to 5 salaried career to work fromhome with me. In order to afford this we had to take a good longlook at our typical expenses and determine what we could do tocut our costs. We quickly realized how much money is spent to make money. Aquick peruse through our refrigerator revealed a lifestyle ofhaste. Almost our entire diet consisted of prepared foods. Wemade a pact to take turns cooking meals and freezing leftoversto see how much money we could save.
What we found out is that it was actually easy to cut ourgrocery bill in HALF on a consistent basis, simply by preparingour meals! It may not take a rocket scientist to figure that oneout, but it was shocking to us to see how much money we had beenspending simply for the convenience of quick meals to supportour unbalanced, quick paced lifestyle. Food that may have been wasted in the past is now the source ofone or two more meals. We freeze a lot of food so that itdoesn’t feel so much like eating leftovers and when we shop welook for deals. We actually find that we eat healthier then everand certainly enjoy the quality of our meals more. One of my favorite ways to save money is using online couponcodes. When I have to purchase any item for my home office,birthday gifts, clothing for the kids, etc. I always do a searchfor a code first. You would be amazed at how manymerchants that you shop from on a
regular basis actually offercoupons for free shipping, 10 – 20% off your entire purchase,etc. To use a code, simply visit a website that carries themsuch as http://www.promotionhub.com and locate the store thatyou plan to shop at. If there is a code noted, make sure to copyit down in case you are asked for it when you go to pay for yourorder. Generally though, the code is embedded in the linkyou click and you will receive the discount simply by arrivingat the website through that link. Another tremendous source of savings… gasoline! My husband hadbeen commuting two hours a day, five days a week. The gas tankwas filled on a weekly basis. Since he has been working fromhome, we fill the tank only on very rare occasions. Our tripsare short and infrequent. We also became acutely aware of our energy usage. Turning offlights became religion. Warm clothes is mandatory before evenconsidering turning on heat. Cutting expenses is an extremely viable way to help make yourreal dreams a reality. For us, it was that both of us could be‘work-at-home parents’. To me, that is the ultimate AmericanDream. To you it may mean saving money for a vacation you neverthought that you could afford, or paying off debt that couldotherwise have taken years. Find ways to cut your expenses and you have instantly increasedyour income! Happy Savings! About the author:Lori Redfield is a freelance Internet entrepreneur. She and herhusband work solely from home and support their family of fivecomfortably – with plenty of time for play! You can obtain more information by visiting her websites,http://www.freelancemom.com and http://www.associatehub.com.
| 
