by Brad Homer
Vices such as smoking, heavy drinking, binge shopping and others don't just cause money to flee from you, in many cases they shorten your life too. What to do? Replace your undesirable habits with ones that put a smile on your face, cost little or no money, and may even add years to your life. If you pick a hobby that has the potential to make money one day or enhances your ability to earn income, then all the better! Almost everyone can come up with some activity they've done in the past or always wanted to do but didn't ever seem to have the time and has little on-going cost associated with it. Of course, it needs to be something you think you'd enjoy a great deal.
You may start with making a list of the vices and expensive habits in your life you want to control or eliminate. Calculate roughly how much time you spend doing these things, then brainstorm fun activities that you can expand into those times to crowd out the unwanted behavior. The more fun, cheaper and healthier the activity, the better. Deciding to jog everyday or to start using that gym membership you're already paying for could be excellent choices (check with your doctor if you're in any doubt of your fitness level.) A prime area to reduce and control is eating out - if you take the family out nearly every day and your budget is feeling the strain, you can save an enormous amount of money by changing that. If you're overweight, eating more meals at home should make it easier for you to control your diet; single restaurant portions in the U.S. tend to be large enough to feed a family of six from Uganda. You can save money and save inches from your waist by cutting back on the outings. A good distraction that doesn't cost too much may be something that can help you make the switch. For example, with the money you're going to save from not eating out so much, you could buy a new video game system. Two hands on a controller can make it harder to munch away and can fill many hours with fun for everyone. Sixty dollars may sound like a lot for a new game, but if that games keeps you at home instead of going out at least once, it's already paid for itself. A good game can keep you occupied for many weeks (or even months.)
Whatever strategy you come up with to move out old, costly habits and replace them with new, less expensive ones - make sure you can enjoy it and continue to see the long term benefits. Saving money doesn't have to be painful; you just need to be smart and swap out the high-priced budget busters for healthy, fun and less expensive alternatives.
Millionaire 2020™ can help you save money and get you on the road to good budgeting.