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My Top 5 Budget Busters
By Molly's Brother | February 4, 2008
I have been tracking my spending again recently and I was surprised to see what my Top 5 Budget Busters were. Over the past two years, I had done a great job cutting back my daily expenses, but then I switched jobs and all the conveniences I was used to at my previous job disappeared (i.e. no break room with a coffee maker or refrigerator). A look at my recent spending shows what my budget busters are. I am estimating the amounts that I spend–and the amounts that I will save–over the course of the year.
1. Coffee – I do enjoy my coffee. I fill two travel cups of home-brewed coffee before I leave the house in the morning and I finish both of them on my drive to work. When I get to work, I buy one more coffee. It costs $2.67. I make this purchase five times a week. ($13.35/week; $53.40/month)
2. Lunches — I do enjoy my lunches, too! I don’t wake up early enough to pack a lunch. If I did, it would cost me about $1.07/day. The lunch I buy at work costs me $5.69. ($28.45/week - $5.35 = $23.10/week; $92.40/month)
3. Unused Memberships –I talk about this often, but sometimes I don’t heed my own advice. I looked at my monthly credit card and noticed a recurring monthly membership for $19.99. I decided to cancel this promptly. ($19.99/month)
4. Weekend Entertainment – I looked back on the nights spent out with friends. In Los Angeles, non-happy hour adult beverages clock in at $14.00/drink. If I buy 2 a night and go out 2 nights a week. (With tips, $60.00/weekly; $240/month.)
5. Water — I buy the box of 1L waters that Trader Joe’s sells. Unfortunately, since we don’t have a water cooler at work, I can’t cut this out of my budget. But I noticed that this is a persistent budget buster. Thank God, though, that TJ’s sells their water cheap. (I won’t calculate this because I am not cutting this out of my budget.)
All told, I can save this much in a week: $101.80
All told, I can save this much in a month: $405.79
By cutting out these budget busters, I can save this much in a year: $4,869.48
Sigh. We’ll see how much of that I can save in a year. Baby-step by baby-step, it will be interesting to see how much of these budget busters I can cut out of my life and save in a year.
Topics: Saving, Your Budget |
February 10th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
When you type it out with the yearly savings, it’s amazing, isn’t it?
Good luck!