One really simple way to save money and create your champagne lifestyle is to look at your spending habits and make some quality changes.
Some ideas might be:
Coffee.
Nearly every savings blog or site you see always puts coffee at the top of the list. Certainly, your daily (or three) cafe coffee can leave a huge dent in your wallet, but life is way too short for bad coffee. in keeping with the champagne lifestyle, I am not going to suggest you drink instant 🙂 Look for alternatives.
Have a coffee machine installed at work. If you work in a large-ish office, there are many businesses that will supply a coffee machine free to your workplace, the business just pays for the coffee used. The price per cup is usually less than $1.00.
If a “proper” coffee machine is deemed too much hard work, what about a pod machine? You can buy any number of coffee flavours as well as hot chocolate. Again the cost per cup is far less than cafe coffee.
Don’t have the capacity for a machine at all? Have a look at single cup options like the good old French Press
Once you have your coffee making apparatus, ask your favourite coffee if they sell beans to take home.
Gym:
Look for cheaper options for fitness. Many local councils run free fitness classes. Check out the MeetUp site. Search for Sports and Fitness groups near you. Who knows you might even find some new friends and get fit at the same time.
Entertainment: Borrow books, magazines and DVDs from the library. If you have not seen the inside of your local library since high school, you might be in for a surprise. Far from the boring stuffy places of your youth, modern libraries have a great range of books, magazines, DVDs and music. Many libraries have collections ready to download onto tablet devices and you don’t even need to go to the library. My library offers a huge range of magazines that I download to my iPad. Most months I cannot read all that I subscribe to. All these magazines are ones I used to actually pay money for and still did not read them all. If I see a particular recipe or article I really want to keep, I just screen grab the page and either email it to myself to store in my Google drive or print it out. Or join Magzter for online magazines.
Dining out with friends. Have a My Kitchen Rules month with your friends. Take it in turn to create your own “pop up restaurants” at each other’s homes. Add the extra challenge of setting a budget per person. $20- $25 per person is actually easily doable if you think about your menu carefully.
Embrace the “Pot Luck Dinner” – task each diner to bring a course.
Rotate the course each time you hold the event. eg:
Event 1: Tom & Jan bring a starter, Jack & Tracey bring the main, Rick and Ash bring dessert, James & Fiona bring wine
Event 2: Tom & Jan bring main, Jack & Tracey bring dessert, Rick and Ash bring wine, James & Fiona bring starter
Event 3: Tom & Jan bring dessert, Jack & Tracey bring wine, Rick and Ash bring a starter, James & Fiona bring the main
Event 4: Tom & Jan bring wine, Jack & Tracey bring a starter, Rick and Ash bring main, James & Fiona bring dessert
Alcohol: Have a cocktail party at home. Grab some cocktail recipes and try some of those $15 cocktails you can never afford when you are out 🙂 (Dan Murphys have heaps here)
Spending: Lock up your credit card for a month. Pay everything in cash. It might surprise you have it feel to actually hand over cold hard cash.
Give the gift of TIME: Rather than forking out big dollars for gifts, give yourself. If you have a hectic, busy life you no doubt rarely spend quality time with your family or friends.
Set aside time to visit with your family member or friend for a full morning (or day), it will cost you a few hours, but it will be priceless to your recipient.
Check your bank statements: Internet banking makes it super easy to check purchases online. Make note of any “unknown” purchases. Do you need to do a claim through your credit card provider? One other nifty little saving trick is to “save your cents”. While in your online banking have a look at your debt balance, and top up the balance to the next $1.00 ( or $5 or $10) eg if your balance is $xxx,x23.68, you might add 32c to bring up to the next $, or add $1.32 to bring to $xxx,x25.00 or even $76.32 bring it up to the next $100.
What are your simple methods for saving?
