When you have spent your life working, budgeting, and scraping together every dime you can save, the last thing you want over your head during retirement is debt. Whether you are attempting to retire young, or want to work until the golden years to save more for your retirement, facing debt early can secure your stress free future. With financial planning and payment plans you may be on the right track for a debt free retirement. However, if you are looking to shave some time off your professional career to retire a little earlier, reducing overhead may help you do just that. There are expenses in everyday life that can be reduced to save more, spend less, and assist in paying debt to assure earlier retirement. Here are a few costs of everyday life that can be reduced for extra funds.
Insurances:
Being insured offers piece of mind in case of accidents or disasters. It also offers a hefty bill. Between car insurance, life insurance, home owners insurance, and medical insurance, it seems a large portion of our salaries are paying for “what if’s†rather than putting those extra funds toward securing your future.
There are options for saving on insurance that most overlook. For instance, if you have already paid off your car, full coverage insurance is no longer needed. Most drivers fail to cut their insurance coverage back once they have made their last car payment. There are also auto insurance options that you may be paying for which are not applicable to you and your household. Gap, personal injury protection, towing, and glass breakage are examples of additional coverage insurance options that you may not need or even know you are paying for. Go over your insurance policy and see what you are paying for and what you can live without to cut costs on your auto insurance.
The same can be said for your homeowners insurance. There are many options such as war and terrorism, which covers your home if it is damaged due to war or a terrorist attack. If you are confident that your house is safe from a terrorist attack, you may want to see if this additional coverage is added to your plan. You may have also signed up for natural disaster coverage when you first purchased your home. If you live in an area that is not susceptible to tornados, floods, hurricanes, volcanoes, meteor showers, or severe lightning strikes, you might feel comfortable removing this additional coverage.
Utilities:
Electricity, water, gas, and trash are pretty much a requirement for living. However, there are other utilities that can be looked at, reduced, and saved upon. Your cable television is one of these utilities. A little known fact about cable is that plans are constantly changing for new customers that existing customers are not notified about. If you have had the same cable plan for years, call your cable company and compare the current rate with the rate you are paying. You may be surprised to find the same plan you love has a new lower price.
Another way to save is by bundling plans. Using the same company for your cable, internet, and home phone, can show savings that can be put towards your debt every month. Most companies offer bundles that are considerably lower than receiving your services from 3 or 4 different companies. You may also save money by cutting out services you don’t use. If you have the premium cable package with all the extra movie channels but still find yourself renting movies instead, you can save each month by canceling your subscriptions. Most cable packages can be personalized to cancel the channels you don’t watch and keep the ones you do for a monthly savings.
Cell Phones:
A cell phone was once a luxury, however these days it is a necessity. If you, your spouse, and your children all have cell phones, you may qualify for a family plan that can save you money every month. Cancelling services you don’t use or lessening the allotted amount of usage may also cut your cell phone cost. If you find you are paying for minutes that you just don’t use each month, text messages that not being sent, or even data plans that you never access, you can save by cancelling these services.
There are many different ways to reduce your living costs in order to fund your retirement, pay more towards debt, or just save for the future. By budgeting and planning early, you will assure plenty of time for securing your financial future. Use the extra money to invest, create residual income businesses, or just pay off student loans, credit cards, or loans that may carry over to your retirement. When you stop working and start living the last thing you want is debt following along.
Gina Patterson is a financial advisor and content contributor for Granite Card, a place to obtain no deposit credit cards for those working on rebuilding their credit history.
