Posted on July 3rd, 2008 in Uncategorized | Edit
We are a nation of “snackers.” We snack between meals, while waiting in lines, on our way to visit friends or in the subway ride to work. Our snacks are mostly pre-packaged foods such as graham crackers, chips or boxed juices. If you’re really, really into healthy eating, you can go as far as buying baby carrots (gasp!). The fact is that snacking is expensive. Because we are usually too lazy to buy in bulk and then split up the food into smaller portions, we tend to buy single-serve bags. If you would ever sit down to calculate the price, you’ll find out that you’re paying almost $14 for a pound of chips. $14!
If giving up snacking on the go seems like too big of a challenge, try to find ways to save money (and keep your waist trim) by switching to more natural snacks, such as fruits, cut-up veggies and nuts or seeds. Even better, you can buy anything you want to snack on in either bulk or large bags and then split it up into smaller servings using Ziploc bags.
Posted on July 2nd, 2008 in Uncategorized | Edit
Why do you overspend? We all have our weak areas when it comes to our budgets. For some people, it’s about bad habits (smoking), luxuries (Prada shoes rather than Payless) or bad organization (buying a second pair of scissors because you can’t find the first one). For others, like me, it’s about emotions.
Talk to me on a happy day and my budget will be flawless –I’ll spend hours actually planning ways to pay less for pretty much everything. On a bad day? I’ll probably be out shopping for things I REALLY don’t need.
While retail therapy may seem like an innocent escape, it can turn into a major problem if you’re doing it so often that it starts to make a dent in your budget. According to Nancy Smith, an expert on debt consolidation, a lot of people are quite compulsive where shopping is concerned. “We buy things out of impulse not out of necessity, and that is the most common mistake a lot of us make when shopping,” says Smith.
Need some help identifying if your habits are out of control? Here are red flags:
- Using too many credit cards too frequently, especially for non-essential purchases
- Overdrafting your checking account more than once
- Buying without comparing prices
- Not knowing why you bought a specific product as soon as you get home
- Buying a magazine on impulse and then realizing you don’t have enough to pay the electric bill
- Buying something because your neighbor (or your sister or your friend) has it
If you find yourself overspending often and much, sit down and reevaluate your commitment. You may need to figure out a different budget or rethink your priorities.
