I know from personal experience that when it comes to getting your personal finances in order, taking those first steps is one of the most difficult parts. There is so much information and it seems like it will take forever before you can ever reach your financial goals. It makes a person want to give up even before they start, but it doesn’t have to be that complicated. The main thing is to start, do a little bit each day and in doing so the savings will begin to pile up. Don’t have much time? It’s not a problem.
Here are 20 ways to easily improve your financial situation that each should take 10 minutes or less to complete.
Wash your clothes in cold water
One way to improve your financial situation is to wash with cold water
Throw in the towel
Not literally, but into the dryer before you begin drying a load. For those that can’t hand dry clothes or on those days when it’s not possible, this is an easy way to reduce the drying time of a load by about 10%. Best of all it takes only a few seconds to do.
The thing to do is keep a big, fluffy towel on the shelf right above the dryer so it’s not a hassle finding one when you need it. When you place a load of wet clothes into the dryer, throw in the dry towel as well. The dry towel helps absorb the moisture in the wet clothes as it tumbles around reducing the time needed to dry the clothes and saving you a bit of money. There are a lot of other dryer money saving tricks like this for those looking for more.
Pay the price
A lot of people use pay-to-use program. The main idea here is set up your own pay-to-use program. Basically, instead of just using the things that you own like your washing machine, dryer and car, you pay yourself a small amount of money each time you use them. Not only does this ensure that you will have enough money when they need to be repaired and when you replace them, it has a wonderful side effect of making you use them less and more responsibility — saving you even more money. This also has the added benefit of building your savings. So, in the event of an emergency, you don’t need to borrow to repair your appliances.
Read the writing on the wall
Some people love to read and have a large library of books at home. However, instead of buying a book, reserve it at your local library (which you can do online so you don’t have to go to see if it is there) and then pick them up the next time you’re in the area. If after finishing the book you know that you want to read it again and again, go out and buy it. If not, you’ve yourself the $20 purchase price. If you read a lot, you can save hundreds of dollars a year this way.
Make a call
If you carry any monthly balance on your credit cards, call and ask to have the interest rate lowered. Prioritize asking the company with whom you have the longest history as a customer, and to whom you’ve most consistently made on-time payments. Most credit card companies will let you do this at least once a year.
If you have a good amount of credit card debt, the savings can be substantial. For example if you owe $10,000 on your cards, the average interest rate you’ll pay is 23.9% or $2,390 dollars per year to carry the debt. If you call and get the rate reduced by 2%, you’ll save $200 per year. Which is a good return on your time.
Call again
Another call to make is to your cable internet company. The cable internet business is competitive and using competitors promotions with the willingness to switch companies can often land you significant savings on what you are currently paying. The process is straightforward and simple:
1. Make the call.
2. When you get through to a real person, immediately ask to speak with someone in the cancellation department.
3. Explain that you enjoy and are satisfied with your current service and you don’t want to switch to a competitor if you don’t have to, but you have a deal from the competition that is much less than what you are currently paying. Explain the deal and name the competitor — in all likelihood your service is already well aware of it since they keep tabs on one another.
4. Ask politely if they can match or at least reduce the amount you are paying for your current service so you don’t have to switch.
If they can give you a better deal, they will since it is much less costly for them to keep you as a customer than to find a new customer to replace you. This savings should be relatively painless.
And one more call
Another simple call to make on a yearly basis is to your car insurance company. Insurance it an extremely competitive business and the internet has made it easy to compare prices which puts you in the driver’s seat, so to speak. Much like with cable TV, do an internet search and get some price quotes from competitors that you can use to bargain with. Make the call and the insurance company will likely do what they can to keep you.
Reward yourself
If you shop a company on a regular basis spend the few minutes to sign up for their reward program. In return, you’ll often get a number of discounts and special deals for things that you were going to buy anyway.
Do this for every frequent flier program, and retail program or food product you usually buy. For example if you buy Rice-A-Roni products often, email their customer service and ask about their rewards program or any coupons they regularly offer. They’ll regularly send you coupons for things you actually buy and use.
Get a programmable thermostat
One great personal finance move to replace your manual thermostat with a programmable model. Per The U.S. Department of Energy, this can cut your heating and air conditioning bill by 10%, as well as improve your quality of life. Even if you have to hire someone to install the programmable thermostat, it’s well worth the price since it will save you a bundle over time and make your living conditions a lot more comfortable.
Get some free reporting
The government lets you obtain a free credit report from each of the 3 major credit reporting agencies each year at annualcreditreport.com.
What you should do is arrange it so that you get a one free report every 4 months – which gives you a good idea of what is happening with your credit over the entire year. Request your Experian report in January, your Equifax report in May and your TransUnion report in August. This allows you to see if there are any problems or mistakes (which can lower your credit rating and mean it costs more to get loans) and monitor to make sure there hasn’t been any identity theft that has taken place.
Ditch Disposables
A lot of people use disposable dishes and utensils. Especially for larger events like parties or camping trips. However, the annual cost of using disposables for a typical American family is typically more than the cost of using reusable dishes. To save money, switch to regular reusable tableware and utensils. An added bonus is that you’ll produce a lot less trash and you’ll have better aesthetics when you’re dining.
Empty Your Car
If you’re observant, you’ll see people often leave a lot of heavy personal belongings in their cars. These generally make your car heavier and reduces your fuel efficiency. Instead of paying more to transport your stuff around, declutter your car and realize the gas savings. If you’re
This is something that I used to be really bad about. I basically was carrying around an entire sports store in my car’s trunk for a couple of years. Now the only thing in my trunk is an emergency kit and whatever supplies I need for where I happen to be going. Not only does it save me a bit on gas, I can actually fit things I need into my car now which makes my wife a lot happier.
Filter some savings
I remember taking a look at my mom’s furnace filter the last time I was back in the US. It was winter and the furnace didn’t seem to be working. It didn’t take long to realize the problem was the filter which hadn’t been changed for at least a year. Now when I call her it’s a running joke that I ask her if she has recently changed the filter. It takes a couple minutes at most to replace your heating or air conditioning filter every few months. You’ll find that doing this on a regular basis will make your systems work much more efficiently saving you money.
An audit you want
One of the best decisions I ever made was calling my local utility company and asking them to come out to do an energy audit on my house. Many offer to do this for free or they may charge a small price, but either way it’s worth it. In addition to doing the audit and showing me where I was losing money due to poor insulation and leaks (and how much it would cost to fix them), they also brought an energy saver kit with low flow shower and sink heads, weather stripping, toilet damn, etc. They offered it for less than half the regular price that it normally sold for and helped me install them. I could see the savings in my bills the next month. With energy prices at all time highs, making this call and setting up an appointment makes it even more worth the 10 minutes it takes.
See the light
We had slowly been making the switch to energy efficient CFL lighting inside our house as our old bulbs burned out, but made a full house switch a few years ago when an area store was offering them for $0.25 a piece as part of a Earth Day promotion with the local energy company. As soon as we made the switch, we wished we had done so earlier. Replacing one bulb at a time doesn’t seem to make much of a difference, but when we switched the whole house, we could instantly see the savings. Since then we have also gone to a motion sensor security light and solar lighting for the garden and pathway to our door.
Become a fan
I used to never pay much attention to the kitchen and bathroom fans in our house and I would often leave them running. I read an article that explained keeping these fans running basically sucks all the warmed (winter) and cooled (summer) air out of the house making your heating / cooling system work harder. We started to use them only when needed and turn them off religiously when we were done which resulted in a large dip in our energy bill. I still feel like hitting myself for not realizing this sooner.
Change you can believe in
My very first emergency fund was put together from the change in my pockets (it works even better in Japan where they have a $1 and $5 coin). I never liked carry change around so this was an easy saving method to implement and since coin changing machines in Japan are free (unlike in the US where saving coins can actually cost you money if you’re not careful), it was perfect. I still empty my pockets on a daily basis into a jar by our front door to this day (although now it’s our vacation fund).
Raise your standards
One of the first things I did once I had an emergency fund in place was to call my car insurance agent and raised my insurance deductible from $500 to $1000. I’ve always had the highest deductible I can get while still knowing I have the money to cover it in case an accident does happen. In fact, when our cars get older so that they are no longer worth a lot but still run fine, I drop all collision insurance.
Dephantomize your house
Did you know that the clock on your microwave oven probably uses more energy during the year than the actual use of you microwave? I ended up buying power strips to plug in all our appliances a few years ago when I learned about phantom energy use. All those appliances that you “turn off” are still consuming energy. While a single appliance by itself would not be a big deal, when you add up all the different appliances and systems in the average home, the phantom electricity load will reach $20+ a year and can even reach $100+ in houses that have a lot of electronics. Now I have a lot less phantom energy waste since I can use the power strips to keep the appliances from sucking up energy even when they appear to be off.
Flex your wallet
I can no longer participate in these programs since I am now self employed, but when I was working for a company that offered them, it was a great way to take care of all my medical needs tax free. Simply sign-up for a medical flexible spending account (FSA) if your employer offers one. You need to be careful because if you have any extra money in the account at the end of the year it gets forfeited, but there are a lot of things you can use the money for including over-the-counter medicines.
Bank on it
Opening up an online bank account was great not only because they pay much higher interest rates that traditional banks, but also because they are an excellent place to keep money that you don’t want to touch. There are plenty to choose from and you can even get sign up bonuses so that you are making money while you save.
While all of these ideas may not be appropriate for your situation, the ones that are should be easy to implement and begin helping your finances right away. Not that I want to sound like a Nike ad, but it’s true that the most important thing is to just do it. Once you get started it becomes much easier to work on other areas of your finances as well. These are just a few of the ways that you can improve your finances with little time involved. Feel free to share others that you use and have benefited from.
Photo credit: Images Money.
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