expenses | Online Savings Blog

How to Prepare For Once-in-a-While Expenses
07.29.08 | Money Management | 0 Comments | by junger

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Everyone has those once-in-a-while expenses that require some planning and preparation in order to pay: car insurance (once or twice a year), yearly dues or memberships, and even taxes.

They're a bit odd because they're not recurring monthly bills, so you're not always thinking about them, but when they hit, they can hit pretty hard.

Here's the easiest way to prepare for those once-in-a-while expenses: automatically set aside money to pay those bills once a month.

By setting up a new online savings account or an ING subaccount, you're establishing a fund solely for these once-in-a-while expenses. Rather than having these bills take a big chunk out of your checking account once or twice a year (which itself requires creatively moving money around), the money is coming from a separate location.

But you still need to feed these accounts — and the easiest way to do it is to make your big once-in-a-while expense a bunch of little monthly expenses.

Got a $1200 car insurance bill you know comes every January 1? Set your new account to automatically transfer $100 from your main checking every month. That way, when the bill lands at your door, you've already paid for it.

You may find it works better to have one account for each once-in-a-while bill or to have a once-in-a-while slush fund, where you transfer the total amount of those bills (divided by 12) each month.

Whichever way you choose, the point is the same: by automatically setting aside the money for these bills, it's like you've already paid for them.
5 Easy Ways to Cut Your Living Expenses
01.30.08 | Money | 0 Comments | by junger
Most financial advice says that, when you're saving, you should look to cut out your extra expenses: the latte factor, eating out every night, and services you pay for but don't use (like the gym).

It's true: you absolutely should.

But at some point, you're going to cut out everything you don't use. Where do you go from there?

In reality, we spend a lot of money just living: paying for a mortgage/rent, running water, electricity, heat, air conditioning and more.

They're all crucial to living a comfortable life and they all cost money. Here are 5 easy ways to cut your living expenses.
- Turn Stuff Off When You're Not Using It
  Right now, I've got the TV on in the other room and no one is watching it. That's a complete waste of electricity. I'm going to go turn it off. Okay, I turned it off. If you don't like turning everything off all the time, consider timers for your lights and setting your computer to hibernate after 20 minutes.
- Take Shorter Showers
  It may sound like a PSA for when a drought has hit, but do you really need to take such long showers? Again, I'm guilty of this, too — especially when I need to wake up in the morning — but I've found that a good cup of coffee can make up for a shorter shower.
- Use Real Plates and Utensils
  Paper plates and plastic utensils are super convenient, but they're one-time use items (unless you wash them, which I've known people to do). If you've got real dishware and utensils, use them.
- Open Your Windows to Cool Down
  Fresh air is so much better than air conditioning, isn't it? It's also a lot cheaper. Use nature's AC the next time your house is hot and you need to cool down.
- Plan Your Meals Out in Advance
  We find we have the most success in deciding what to buy at the supermarket when we know what we're going to be eating in advance. Just like going to the supermarket hungry is a bad idea, going without knowing what you're buying is a bad idea. If you decide in advance what you're going to be eating, you'll buy exactly what you need.
What easy things are you doing to cut your living expenses?

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