All the ways to save money this year.

So I've been working on clearing off my debt for a while now, with little to no traction except for having a great payment history. Though that is amazing, that was not the goal, your credit will still suck. I needed to pay off my debt not because of my credit really but that would be an added bonus, but because I needed to do it. The reason for this being to get to the next stage of my life and to accomplish the things I wanted and needed to accomplish. 

What are these things I wanted to accomplish? 

There are many things; two of them being buying a house and kick starting my business. Both of which needed you to have a decent debt to income ratio in order to be approved for loans or anything like that. 

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Initially I wasn't going to write this blog until I had the results to prove that these tips actually worked, but I figured instead of giving pieces of information at a time, I will give you the over view here and as I do these steps and accomplish these goals, I can write blogs going through how they worked or failed, or where I might have gone wrong. 

So yes this is a work in progress but these are the things that I didn't do before and after taking a good look at my finances and what needed to be changed. I believe this will work, or at least help. 

Let me preface this by saying; I'm not a financial advisor, these are just my opinions and opinions are obviously not facts. I'm just simply sharing my thoughts and plans and if you believe this can be helpful to you, go ahead and think about it, do your own research and make your own informed decisions. 

Lets continue.. 
In order to pay off my bills I needed something; Money. 
Yes obviously I need money. Depending on how great your debt is, you might not need that much, but I needed a lot of it. A lot. A lot. I'm going to hold off giving the details of how much I owe right now or even why, because that's a longer story. But back to the point I needed Money. 
I have a job that pays well enough I guess, just not enough for what I need to sustain a healthy happy life. I pay my rent and other essential bills, I help my mother in Jamiaca and every now and again have those special/surprise expenses. Nothing crazy, in my opinion. 

Since I needed more money I would need to do a couple of things. 

Make More Money

1. Ask for a raise. 
2. Get a promotion. 
3. Look into freelance jobs. 
4. Try to do gigs. 
5. Uber/Lyft/Doordash.
6. Get a second job. 

Cut Down Expenses.

1. ​Phone Bill
2. Food Bill
3. Travel Expenses
4. Work Expenses
5. Leisure Expenses
6. Subscriptions
7. Bank/Credit card fees

For some people cutting down expenses might be all they need, however I needed to do both. Most of my expense are essential, like paying rent, there's no way around that, and by all comparisons my rent is a good price, not for the size room I rent, but I have somewhere to sleep. 
When I looked at everything even if I threw out my phone, stopped eating and did nothing but work and pay my rent and bills, it would still not be enough. Obviously throwing out my phone or stop eating wasn't an option but just an example, to show how tight my finances are. 

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Cutting expenses were the easier of the two to do, minus the things you can't really cut, like rent; unless you know how to do that without being homeless. Let me know. Making more money with the options that I had was way harder than I thought it should be, but it was. I can write a separate blog with all the different avenues I looked into for making more money, in more details. I eventually just ended up getting a second job. A second is a really hard thing to balance when you have a full time job, I literally just started so I'll tell you guys how that is working out. The idea however is to have it for a short time and really keeping your eyes on the price. Getting an additional stream of revenue will do wonders for you achieving your goals. 

What I want to focus on though is cutting your expenses, which can help a lot, while you wait for this additional income. I wrote another blog previously about ways to save money on your phone bill, its really about alternative options to your mainstream phone companies that might work just as well, and save you tons.  
In this blog I'll go over some of the basic ones and leave the others for more detailed blogs. 

Work Expenses
Sometimes we have a lot of work expenses which we never get reimbursed for. This might be clothes to go to work and shoes, having your nails, and hair done, and all these other things that makes you feel good and look cute at work. However do what you can yourself, like nails, hair, facial, it's not the same I know. Though you will need some clothes to go to work, for right now consider getting some good stables, the essentials that's  versatile. Maybe get one nice black or somewhat neutral shoes to wear with your outfits, then a black pants or a suit and just switch between a couple of tops. This is not a fashion shoot you don't need every style of clothes. The bright side is once your debt is paid off you can be a little more flexible but not too flexible with your spending.  

Travel Expenses
​I didn't have a lot of expenses as it relates to traveling, I walk to work most times and then I would take a Uber /Lyft home at night. Ways I thought about reducing this, is by taking the bus when possible. Also consider carpooling when able. I don't own a car so won't speak on that area, but consider ways that you can reduce expenses associated with that based on your personal experiences and lifestyle. Maybe you stay in more, carpool or decide to take the bus instead of driving everywhere. Maybe look for lower price insurance and car payments. 

Leisure Expenses 
You know what these are, they are; the dinners, the movies, out with friends, bars and clubs, whatever it is you do for fun expenses. Though fun is good and you need to have fun and take a break and be happy. You must also ensure that you are not spending too much on these things, and only you can determine what is too much. Consider making a budget and deciding how much is okay for you to spend on these activities. There are options to have fun in ways that was not extremely expensive, but again this is something you will have to figure out. For me, I already don't go out, or do anything, so this is not the time to start. 

I will end this blog here and go over the other expenses in a separate blog so look out for that.
Thanks for reading.