The $25 a week goal

A lot of people are reconsidering their spending habits lately.  The economic crisis of the past twelve months has changed our culture forever, and, regardless of how soon or how quick we bounce back, the fact is, most of us, at some point over the past twelve months, have taken the time to identify whats important, and whats not in our lives, and take stock of our financial situation.

I set myself a personal goal to try to cut down on my own spending by at least $25 a week.

So how have I cut back?  To start with, I no longer purchase my daily Cafe Latte  on the way to work.  This alone saves me about $15.00 a week/$60.00 month.  I also try to take my lunch to the office a few days a week - which often helps me be more productive by having a working lunch.  That saves me about $30.00 a week/$120.00 month.    I've re-examined my grocery shopping habits, and I buy in bulk at a Wholesale Club once a month, and in between, I've discovered some really good quality and inexpensive fruit and vegetable stores and butchers in my local community that have great bargains, and quality, seasonal product.  Changing my grocery shopping habits has saved me about $100.00 week/$400.00 month.   I am more conscious of my utility bills, and I keep our air conditioning set to 76 degrees, which, makes a  difference to our electricity bill.  I reviewed our family cell phone plan, and observed our call habits over a 3 month period, and discovered we didn't need anywhere near as many minutes as our plan offered - so I changed our plan to less minutes and that saved $100 a month.   We still eat out from time to time, but overall, we're much more conscious about what we spend, and on what.  And, we found that it was easier than we thought to save a little bit extra each week by just changing our habits.


In total, I'm saving around $680.00 a month, just by changing a few of my spending habits, and sacrificing a few things, such as my morning Latte.  And in 30 years time, if I continue to save that $680.00 a month and put it in a savings account at 5% interest, I will have saved $568,973.00 made up of  $245,480.00 in accumulated savings and an additional $323,493.94 in accumulated interest!