Now that 2011 is almost over a lot of you are getting ready to making your new year’s resolutions for 2012. One popular New Year resolution that I hear a lot of people make is to fix their budgets and deal with debt, so this week I am going to give 5 new year’s tips to help get your budget in control and help you have some extra money to reduce your debts.
5. Change Your Spending Habits
Try buying things that you need, instead of buying things that you want. Before you buy something, ask yourself a simple question “do I really need to buy this?” Believe it or not most of the time your answer will be no. Another big saver is when grocery shopping buy store brands instead of name brands. On most store brands you can save yourself up to 30% on everyday grocery items.
4. Stop Impulse Buying
Never walk into a store and purchase something without thinking about it first. I recently read a book called The Wealthy Barber Returns (great book by the way), in the book he gave a great example “the 24 hour rule”, basically it works like this, if you walk into a store and see something that you like, wait 24 hours and if you still feel compelled to buy that item, then it might be worth buying.
3. Change the Way You Eat Out
Most of us love our coffee and our fast food (I am one of those people). Believe it or not, a lot of our money goes to little things like our morning trip to Tim Hortons for coffee or a trip to the local fast food restaurant for lunch. Try making your own coffee in the morning or packing a lunch when you go to work. That daily coffee at Timmy’s does add up, $2 for a coffee every day adds up to about $60 per month, that $60 could be used on much better things, like reducing your debts or increasing your savings.
2. Never Buy Anything at Full Price
We all have purchased something, only to find a week later it is on sale. If you find something that you like and follow the “the 24 hour rule” in tip #4, at least wait till the item is on sale. If it isn’t wait till the item does go on sale and hopefully by that time you no longer feel the need to buy the item, saving you even more money.
1. File a Consumer Proposal
If you are in a lot of debt and do have the money to pay some of it, just not all of it and you don’t want to go bankrupt, there are options out there that can help you get out of debt. One of those options is called a consumer proposal, a consumer proposal is a deal that we help you put together to pay a portion of your debts over a period of up to 5 years.
If you are planning on reducing your debts this year and are interested in filing a consumer proposal, please remember that only a someone licensed bv the federal government as an administrator of consumer proposals can help you put a consumer proposal together for your creditors. Beware of debt consultants.
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