Personal Finance For Dummies®, 6th Edition

Chapter 6. Reducing Your Spending

In This Chapter

• Getting the most for your money

• Increasing your savings

• Controlling and cutting costs

Telling people how and where to spend their money is a risky undertaking, because most people like to spend money and hate to be told what to do. You'll be glad to hear that I don't tell you exactly where you must cut your spending in order to save more and accomplish your personal and financial goals. Instead, I detail numerous strategies that I have seen work for other people. The final decision for what to cut rests solely on you. Only you can decide what's important to you and what's dispensable (should you cut out your weekly poker games, or cut back on your shoe collection?).

I assume throughout these recommendations that you value your time. Therefore, I don't tell you to scrimp and save by doing things like cutting open a tube of toothpaste so that you can use every last bit of it. And I don't tell you to have your spouse do your ironing to reduce your dry-cleaning bills — no point in having extra money in the bank if your significant other walks out on you!

The fact that you're busy all the time may be part of the reason you spend money as you do. Therefore, the recommendations in this chapter focus on methods that produce significant savings but don't involve a lot of time. In other words, these strategies provide bang for the buck.

Finding the Keys to Successful Spending

For most people, spending money is a whole lot easier and more fun than ...