Your bank account might be drained, but chances are that it leaked in small doses. Twenty-dollar “yuppie food stamps” may seem petty one at a time, but add up the week’s withdrawals and you’ll soon see you’re close to zero, yet again. It’s often not until the monthly statement comes in that you can survey the damage and realize your bank account has a leaky pocket at the ATM machine.
You could try to remedy the situation by taking out larger amounts, but we often have the tendency to spend a wad of cash because stacks of bills lie to us and tell us we’re rich. You can also quickly fall back on old habits and make multiple withdrawals of larger sums, and end up back where you started – at the bottom of your bank account, trying to crawl back out.
The real secret is to look into your spending habits. The money must be going somewhere, right? Cutting back on your bar tab could leave you $20 savings a week. Add it up, and you’ve got an extra $80 a month. Switch to a six pack and drink a cold one on the porch instead. You can invite your friends over, and your iPod is probably better than any juke box.
Here are a few other tips to cut back on your $20 withdrawals.
- Rent a Movie or Join Rental Services Like NetFlix.Movie tickets range anywhere from $8 to $10 these days. Add it up for 2, and you can easily spend $20 just for 2 hours of watching a screen. That’s practically a night out the opera. Throw in some buttered popcorn and corn syrup soda, and you can easily drain your bank account just going out to the movies. A rental costs $3 or $4, tops. Rental services cost $8 to $15 a month, but you can rent unlimited movies. Clean the house, make a nice romantic dinner and pop in a movie. Should the plot line break down for romance, you don’t have to feel like a teenager catching a kiss in the back of the theater.
- Buy Food in Season.To everything turn, turn, turn; there is a season. Buy tomatoes when they are ripe on the vines and the farmers are practically giving them away. Stick to lettuce and winter greens when it’s snowing outside. Gauge your shopping list according to what’s in harvest. There’s no need to buy colorful peppers when they cost $4 a piece in the wintertime.
- Buy Clothes Out of Season.You might not wear that swimsuit in January, but you’ll find the lowest prices when there’s frost on the ground. When clothes are out of season, outlets and online shops practically give them away. When Summer rolls around, you’ll be that much happier to rip off the tags and hit the beach. It will give you something to look forward to.
- Head Home After Payday and Make Dinner.When we’ve just deposited that paycheck, we feel like we’re owed something. The Friday of payday tends to be the time we blow the most money, hitting restaurants, buying drinks, living off the fat of the land. Save your paycheck for the rest of the pay period by being economical from the moment your check arrives in your hand. Build up some savings over time, and then treat yourself, but within reason.
- Bring Your Own Wine or Beer.When restaurants don’t have a liquor license, they will often allow you to bring in your own bottle of wine or beer, provided that local municipality laws agree with the idea. They may charge you a corking fee, but it’s a lot cheaper than an expensive bottle of wine you’d buy off a wine list. Plus, this lets you try your favorite wine to see how it mixes with the salmon pasta.
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