Whether you’re suffering from a loss of income or cutting costs to build up your emergency savings, reducing your monthly expenses is a simple way to cut costs. Even though some of those smaller bills can feel insignificant, their cumulative costs can have a major impact on your financial resources!

Review Your Budget

The first step you’ll need to take is examining your budget. Use your Carter on the Go mobile banking app to review your monthly expenses. Our money management tool makes it easy to categorize these transactions and review them at a glance.

This exercise will help you separate your extra expenses from your basic needs expenses. Anything that isn’t essential to safe and healthy living is up for consideration.

Start with Subscriptions

According to the Simple Dollar, the average American can spend $237 in subscription fees per month. That adds up to over $2,000 a year! Whether it’s HelloFresh, Amazon Prime, or Netflix, consider slashing your subscriptions, even if it’s temporary.

When reviewing your subscriptions ask yourself:

• When was the last time I used this subscription?
• Is it worth paying for this service? Can I find it cheaper?

Quick Tip: You can pause most of your streaming subscriptions! Instead of canceling, just pause all but one of your streaming services each month. Each month you can re-activate a different platform so you can still watch all the content you want in a way that doesn’t hurt your wallet!

Call Your Utility Companies

Companies like cell phone and internet service providers will always prioritize keeping your contract over charging a higher rate. First, find out what their competitors are charging. You can use this as leverage to request price matching when you call your service provider. Often times, they will waive a certain fee or reduce your monthly payment to keep your business.

Shop Smarter

While food is a non-negotiable expense, there are still ways to cut your costs while shopping. One of the best ways to prevent yourself from overspending is through creating a shopping list and a budget before you step foot in the store. This will prevent you from impulse buys and guarantee that none of your food will go to waste. You can also use grocery store apps to save digital coupons and review sales from the convenience of your phone!

Stay on Track

These are just a few of many ways to reduce your monthly spending. The most important advice we can give you is to be diligent! Use your online and mobile banking tools to continue to review your spending and adjust where possible. You can also use CardValet to set spending limits in certain categories, just in case you don’t trust yourself to stick to your plan.

Have questions about how Carter Bank & Trust products and services can help you stay on top of your financial game? Contact us today!