Cut just one cup a week
Posted
Jun 02 2008, 11:44 PM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.
Cut out the morning coffee at Starbucks!
Bring a bag lunch!
Stop drinking alcoholic beverages!
If you've been trying to find areas to trim in your budget, those are likely the first three things you'll hear suggested, right? The Latte Factor! It's horrible that you're wasting money on coffee you can brew at home. It's a travesty! OK, except you don't have a coffee maker at home, have hardly any time in the morning to brew it, and if you don't have it -- oh boy, your office had better watch out because you'll be one cranky man/woman/beast.
Bag lunch? Forget it. You don't have time to make lunch, and you don't want to lug it to work, stuff it in the fridge and then eat it alone at your desk.
Alcoholic beverages? That's the high point in the day; you can't take that away. Plus, people who go to happy hours earn more -- and you want to make more money, right? Of course.
All of the above was tongue-in-cheek, but the "excuses" are legitimate. It's difficult to restructure large parts of your day just to save a few dollars, but sometimes it's important to do so. However, rather than make wholesale changes that you're likely to abandon within a few weeks -- if you can even get started -- try doing it incrementally.
Brew your own coffee on Fridays. Friday is usually the least-structured workday, and many people come in later than their usual start time. Take advantage of this by brewing your own coffee. If you don't have a coffee maker, you can buy one for about $20 and a 100-pack of filters for about $4. Then, all it takes is some coffee, and you're on your way to brewing your own. If you want to be really efficient, set it all up the night before and program the coffee maker to brew just before your alarm goes off. You can wake up to the wonderful smell of brewing coffee just like in the commercials. Just brew it on Fridays and you can hit Seattle's Best Coffee the other four days. If you can change a $3 Friday coffee habit, that's $150 in savings a year.
Resolve to bring lunch on Mondays. You have all weekend to pack a nice meal, so you can't complain that you have no time. Monday is often the busiest workday, so you can eat at your desk and get more work done. By cutting out one day of $7 lunches and replacing it with $2 lunches, you can save $250 a year. You can get something really nice for $250 a year -- or save it -- just by bring lunch from home on Mondays.
Bag lunch on Monday, brew coffee on Friday -- and get $400 a year that you can use for whatever you want. As for cutting out alcohol, sorry, but you're on your own on that one.
Other articles of interest at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity:
"Try reducing instead of eliminating a trimmable"
"7 ways to be green and save green"
"Are you a snowflaker?"
