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I've had my share of ups and downs. I had experienced good pay in corporate employment and experienced being in the rosters of the unemployed. Through these times the biggest lesson I have learned is to always prepare for the rainy days. You never know when the next crisis is going to come.
The next thing I learned is that there are numerous money leaks in people's spending patterns. I decided to plug mine and to my surprise I found that I can raise enough of an amount that when invested properly and consistently will make a distinct difference in investment opportunities that I can take advantage of. Needless to say the future looks rosier because of the combined effect of plugging all these money leaks. By the way this is not a get rich quick scheme. This takes consistency and discipline.
Let me go into specifics. I started by changing my light bulbs to fluorescent ones. The lighting was better. Then I changed shower heads and toilets into low flow units. I did drip irrigation for the plants and lawn. This lowered my Water and Power bill by $25 a month. I started bagging lunches. I brewed my coffee rather than hit the coffee shops. As I ate better I lost weight and kept it off and saved about $60 a month on lunch money. I re-shopped my life and property insurance policies and saved another $70 a month. I switched to a free checking account instead of paying the $10 dollar fee. We had two accounts so that was another $20 a month. We also stared finding money by using coupons and wrapping the spare change and taking it to the bank roll by roll. The commercial coin counting machines charge an 8% fee at least and to me that was unacceptable.
All these reductions in expenses totaled $175 a month. I made sure that we forgot about this money. Getting ahead in investing requires radical changes. I made sure that the money was invested. Back then we put the money into mutual funds. My first goal was to have at least a $1000.00 in our account because that money was going to be our ticket to other ways of reducing our expenses.
As soon as our statement came in and it said we have made our goal I immediately called my health and car insurance carrier and raised my deductibles to $1000 per year. The health insurance deductible requirement only kicked in for major medical incidents in my policy and not the routine doctor and hospital visits. That $1000. 00 dollars was also my hedge just in case we got into an accident while driving. These changes saved me another $190 dollars a month in expenses.
I have for almost two decades now made consistent and conservative investments. We know that the money we have saved is not to be used frivolously. We indulge on occasion on electronics or the basketball games at the stadium. Because of the sacrifice we had to make to have these savings we appreciate the extras in life more. The biggest benefit is the fact that it gives us peace knowing that we have done are very best to alleviate the effects of coming financial disasters. That is sweet.
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