As the Weather Heats Up – 5 Ways to Cool Your Spending

Are your spending habits too hot to handle? While a spike in air temperature is typically well received, a spike in over spending, interest rates, unpaid bills, and gas prices are just a few ways to melt away any financial goal. We’ll discuss 5 ways you can cool your financial quandaries. Saving money is more important than ever and finding new ways to stock away funds here and there can help. These tips will help you at home, the grocery store, and on the road. Put some sizzle back in your savings with these chill tips.

Conserve fuel in any car. It’s a little extreme to think that everyone can simply switch to a more fuel-efficient vehicle. New cars are expensive and existing fuel-sipping automobiles are such hot commodities right now, they are hard to find. You can save up to $800 per year on gas by making a few small changes, though: Keep your tires inflated to the appropriate pressure, use credit cards which offer cash back on gas purchases (paying off your balance in full each month, of course!), and most importantly, lose the lead foot. Maintaining your vehicle properly and traveling at slower, steadier speeds have been proven cost-cutting techniques for years.
Save on groceries. There are many ways to save up to $1,200 per year at the grocery store these days. One of the most obvious one is buying store brands, many of which are very high-quality and nearly exactly like “the real thing.” Then of course there are Sunday circulars and manufacturers coupons. It’s dangerous to your wallet to shop when you’re hungry or tired. Search both high and low, as this tends to be where the cheapest items are. But most importantly, use a list! Supermarkets, like other stores, use all sorts of marketing ploys to entice you into buying more than you intended.
Make food at home. At first it may seem daunting to whip up a homemade meal five to seven nights out of the week like your mother did. It may seem even more overwhelming when you think about also packing a lunch for work and making breakfast (and coffee!) each the morning. In the long-run it’s a true money-saver. Think about this for a moment: $5 coffee in the morning, $7 lunch in the afternoon, and $12 dinner in the evening ads up to $24 per day, $120 per week, and over $6000 per year. If you spend $75 per week on groceries ($62.20 is average for a single person), you’d spend only $3,900 on feeding yourself. That’s a savings of $2,100!
Seal up your house. A few one-time investments and some occasional maintenance can reduce your heating bill in the winter and your electricity expenditures for cooling in the summer. Conduct a home-energy audit searching for air leaks, the instructions for which can be found on-line. You can also hire a pro to do it for about $200. Then it’s time to add insulation and seal leaks around windows and doors, as well as in attics and basements. The cost of the materials will be paid for in energy savings before you know it!
Use home energy efficiently. After the house has been properly sealed, invest about $50 to install an Energy Star programmable thermostat to automatically make adjustments. You can program it to turn down the heat when you sleep or are at work and raise it in the morning or when you come home. It’s also important to change the air filter in your heating and cooling system at least every three months.