The Enriched Teacher

Life for me has been chaotic since I was laid off in 2010. Cancer, adoption, unemployment, career changing, and bankruptcy are a few words I would use to describe my life. In short... chaos.

As I continue to clean up the mess left behind from an unstable economy... I have begun to view things differently. I started searching for ways to be economy-proofed. I never wanted to be here again and then I discovered a great site for teachers and well just anyone!

I asked the author of this blog if he would be our guest speaker and he agreed! I hope you enjoy his wisdom as much as I do!

How to Create Money Saving Habits That Actually Work

This is a guest post by Steven Daar from the Teacher Retirement Help blog, a site that has been featured  by CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, Yahoo News, & Morningstar.

Have you looked at your savings & checking accounts and wondered where your paycheck went? What about the last 3, 5, 10 (or more!) years worth of paychecks?

Did you resolve to change your spending habits to save more money? Did it work?

Alright, that’s enough questions for now. Changing your lifestyle is a very difficult thing to do and it is why so many people struggle with saving money or exercising more or eliminating a long term habit.

It’s why the vast majority of New Year’s resolutions don’t last beyond Martin Luther King Day. Think about how you probably went about trying to save money: looking at where you spend a lot of money and try to eliminate that expense as much as possible.

You see many so-called “Money Experts” give advice that talks about extreme cutting of discretionary spending. They’ll tell you to participate in the “No Restaurant Challenge” where you don’t dine out for a whole month. Or even more extreme, they recommend an intense limiting the number of times dining at a restaurant for perpetuity (which for those of us who like eating at restaurants, just can’t be done).

The problem with the “No Restaurant Challenge” is that some days you don’t feel like cooking, there are special occasions or dates with friends or loved ones that shouldn’t be missed. But more importantly, let’s say you eat at a restaurant twice a week so 8 times each month.

Even if you complete the challenge, you save the expense of 8 restaurant meals. What happens after that month? You’ll probably feel pretty good about accomplishing something and then go back to your old spending and dining habits.

What if instead of depriving yourself completely for a month, what if you simply kept track of how many times you dined out and made sure you never dined out more than 7 times per month? You don’t have to deny yourself of the pleasure of being cooked for and waited on AND eating out 1 less time per month saves you the expense of 12 restaurant meals.

That is 50% more savings than the “No Restaurant Challenge”. As you get comfortable with dining out a little less, you can reduce your limit to 6 times per month. That would be saving the expense of 24 restaurant meals per year.

Assuming you’re only paying for yourself and spend $20 per visit, that is an extra $480 each year……and a whole lot more if you have a whole family dining out or spend more than $20 per meal on average.

This doesn’t just apply to dining out at restaurants, you can use this in a whole ton of different areas: Entertainment, Clothing, Night Life, or whatever it is you find yourself spending money on regularly.

This is just the tip of the savings iceberg! If you would like to get a copy of the Enriched Teacher Guide with 5 more insanely practical money saving tips that are focused on saving you as much money as possible with as little effort……

Then Click Here To Get Your FREE Copy of the Enriched Teacher Guide!