Curb Spending To Find Cash - Manage Your Debt

What's harder? Saving $25,000 for a down payment on a house, squirreling away extra $1500 for a new TV, or giving up rich, delicious chocolate for a month? Okay, I know that I'd pick the chocolate. When it comes to saving goals, though, in some ways it's harder to save for a $1500 purchase than it is for a house. Here's my reasoning. If you want to buy a house, you expect to spend a long time, years even, socking away money. The TV? You wanted it last night while your favorite show was on. You certainly don't want to wait until the next episode. Then there's the second, even more compelling reason the TV is hard to save for. You don't have to wait until you can afford it. You can charge it.

Credit cards are such wonderful tools and they get us into so much trouble. Credit card bills arrive in the mail with all the heft of a college acceptance letter. But we shouldn't be surprised, because we use them for everything, from bill paying to groceries and parking fees. Hey, it's convenient, and we earn bonus points. Trouble is, when we've put an extra purchase or two or three or four on plastic, it's not just the physical size of of the bill that grows.

Consider this. The average household carries nearly $10,000 in credit card debt and spends almost $1500 a year in interest alone. In comparison, you might think you're doing pretty well. But the reality is that with interest rates of 12% to more than 20%, any credit card debt is bad to have. That's reason enough to use this year's one-time tax rebate on paying down your plastic, rather than on a splurge. But even without a rebate, most of us can still afford a special $500-$2000 purchase without running up the card. It almost goes without saying that one of the first up to want to take is to curb other smaller splurges. Shopping is the great American pastime and most of us indulge in a little retail therapy now and then. Exercising restraint and setting your weekly or monthly splurge money aside for a bigger purchase is a smart first step, but it's only the starting point. Next, you need to look for savings in your household budget.

Cut back and get ahead. There is fluff in every budget. The key here is to cut back on things you won't miss too much. If you loathe brown bagging a lunch and eating out helps you to get through the week, keep that expense in your budget and find some where else to cut back. You don't have to eliminate an activity, but merely do it less.

If you regularly order out for pizza on the weekends, pick one or two Saturdays a month when you make something at home. Or fill a travel mug with coffee before you head out the door in the morning instead of paying for five bucks a cop at the coffee shop.

Creating cash flow. Another fairly painless way to save money is to sell stuff that's collecting dust. Try auctioning just a half dozen items for a week. Even if you only averaged $20 item, you'll make more than hundred dollars that we close to $500 in a month.

For more detailed information about credit card help, try visiting http://il-credit-consolidation.com, a debt relief site that includes helpful information about student credit card debt, credit card debt settlement, and credit card debt reduction.