Monday, June 19, 2006

Finances, Saving Money - Part 1 - Breakfast

With your budget, there are only two variables: inflow and outflow. If you spend more than your income, it's called poverty or possibly bankruptcy.
There are several ways to help get to a positive cash flow - Increase your income, and/or decrease your expenses.

Here are three things I have done for several years that save money, and help stem the spending, so I can balance my budget:

1) Cook your own breakfast. Whether you eat cereal, or eggs and hash browns, making it yourself can save TONS of money in a year.
Let's see: 1/2 of a 3 egg omelet and a hash brown patty = ONE Quarter !! (eggs are about a dime each, I get hash browns for about 10 cents each) Time, you say? Well it takes me 10 minutes to make my own pretty good breakfast. It would probably take me just as long to drive to a fast-food restaurant and go through the drive-through. And the cost at a fast food? Well, what do YOU spend. . .$1.25, $2.00, or what? Let's say that you spend TWO DOLLARS a day (just on weekdays). That comes to $1.75 saved for 10 minutes effort, or an hourly wage of $10.50.

Or, to put it another way, if you save $1.75 (or whatever you spend) 5 days each week, that's $455.00 per year. Enough to buy an IPod, or a pretty good digital camera, or make one month's rent. . .

Stay tuned for the second and third easy idea. . .

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