If you were to think about the choices that you make every day around what you purchase, throw away, borrow, lend and consume, you can begin to think about ways that you can spend your money more wisely and cut back on unnecessary expenses!Saving money doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to compromise your current lifestyle, but you can bring some of the extremes into moderation, like our first point for today.

If you want to increase your income and enjoy more expendable cash, then you need to re-assess how and where you’re spending your money!  Check out these 5 fresh saving tips and see how you can start to implement them in your life today.

Perhaps you need to cut back – or give up entirely – expensive habits, like cigarettes and alcohol.  Those habits cause money to flow away from you with nothing in return.  One pack of siggies a day can cost you up to R10 000 a year!  Call up your fortitude and work hard to kick the habits and you’ll find that money staying in your pocket instead of burning up and floating away.

Make a quadruple batch of a mac and cheese.  Pastas are nice, easy dishes to prepare, but on busy nights, it’s often still easier to just order some take-out or eat out or just pop a pre-packaged meal in the microwave.Instead, the next time you make a nice home-cooked meal that will freeze well, make four batches of it and put the other three in the freezer.  Then, the next time you need a quick meal for the family, grab one of those batches and just heat it up – easy as can be.

Even better, doing this allows you to buy the ingredients in bulk, making each dish cheaper than it would be ordinarily – and far, far cheaper than eating out or trying a pre-packaged meal.  And… you only have to warm up the oven once.

Be diligent about turning off lights before you leave.  Burning lights, appliances, TV’s etc use up power that is unnecessary.  Whilst it may not seem like a lot, they’re still using power and they’re still costing you money.Regardless of the positive impact this will have on the environment, it will have an immediate impact on your monthly energy bill!  With winter approaching, we have more cloudy days, which means that you may turn lights on during the day.  When the sun comes out again, remember to turn them off!  I just did that in my office.

Buying the latest DVD or book as soon as it comes out is expensive.  Rather look to joining or starting a book, CD or DVD club with your friends and neighbours.   You only pay a small amount each month and have access to loads more!  Best of all, when it’s your month to buy, you get to keep them all at the end of the rotation.  Starting asking your colleagues and friends if they’re involved in a similar club, you’ll be surprised at how many are!

Maximize jumble and yard sales. I like to stop by these if I see them, but I recognize that often the stuff there is junk. Thus, I’m careful about what I buy and I use clever tactics to find it – and lower the prices. That way, I wind up with a really big bargain – or else I can just walk away with the money in my pocket, having been entertained for a bit.  I can’t remember how many times I’ve walked into a friend’s house and seen a really nice article or piece of furniture and when I ask where they bought it, it turns out it was second-hand!

That’s the freshest five saving tips for May!  If you have any suggestions, please send a mail to my online reputation managers and we’ll do our best to use them.