A critical exercise that I do with my clients is called “Found Money In Your Everyday Expenses”. 

This exercise is testing a couple of factors; a client’s commitment to changing their money habits, their ability to prioritize what they are spending their money on, and lastly their capacity to see their money growing in the future.

This exercise challenges individuals to negotiate with themselves the areas where they are choosing to spend their money. So what’s the payoff of this inner negotiation? Simple, increasing Benjamins over time! The best things about this simple, yet powerful exercise is that there is no extra added work hours, no additional increase in pay that needs to happen, and savings can start immediately.

So do I have your attention? 

Good!

Here are my top 3 tips on how to go through this “Found Money In Your Everyday Expenses” exercise:

1. Go through all your monthly online subscriptions. These include subscriptions to online magazines, online apps, and memberships. In most cases, you are only using 50% of what you currently are signed up and paying monthly for. Compile a list of these online subscriptions and cancel the ones that you rarely use, or even stopped using. 
2. Cut down on your streaming TV & Show platforms like Netflix, HULU, Amazon Prime. Full disclosure, this is a VERY hard negotiation for many people. As a society, we have become so invested in our shows and programs. What can help you make the final decision on which platforms to cut out, is to let go of the ones that you only sometimes go on to watch shows. Keep the one platform that has the majority of shows that you really, really enjoy. Another suggestion that can save some serious dollars at the end of the month is to cancel your cable entirely. “Gasp!” Yup, I went there!
3. Decrease your Rideshare frequency monthly by half. This fairly new monthly expense line item has been growing to shocking amounts of on average $300 – $500 a month! This is not because people are going more places, it’s because apps like Lyft & Uber has made it so easy for us to choose convenience over logical spending. 

Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting to not use Rideshares at all, I’m simply suggesting to cut down the amount spent on this by half or a minimum of 30%. Opt instead have public transportation days throughout the week, or find inventive ways to carpool with co-workers throughout the week, or even better yet, ride a bike to work/school day a couple times a week. 

Once you complete these steps above, commit to the decisions you made in these areas. These small everyday choices can add up to a couple hundred dollars at the end of the month. Which adds up to a couple thousand dollars at the end of the year. Which adds up to much, much more as the years go on.

The cherry on top of the money cake? This money was already there! 

Supercharge these rolling savings by putting them in accounts that get a good annual compounding rate of return and you’ll want to do this exercise all over again. 

Let’s hear from you, would you do the “Found Money In Your Everyday Expenses” exercise? 

Photo by Pepi Stojanovski on Unsplash