Tayo Hendrix's Credit Crunch Tip

10 months ago 06th Jan 15:55

Happy New Year and welcome to a new way of crunching those credits!

Life is full of choices and each choice you make has an impact on where you are going. Where you are now is where you thought yourself to prior to today. Therefore, if you can change where you are simply by changing your thought pattern and your view of life, you can turn the frown upside down. Like you, I feel, we are hearing too many ideas for credit crunching: "search around for cheaper car insurance", "join a car pool", search for cheaper home insurance and life insurance for those who are still paying for them! "Shop at Aldi rather than Sainsbury they are the same with different labels" - really, they don’t taste the same to me! Well my ideas are a little less drastic but I am sharing them here with you:

Crunching down on the New Year

Look at all your finances and get a true picture of how much you owe. Including what you have just spent on Christmas and New Year celebrations. Although this can be really scary, when you know the truth you have nothing left to be afraid of. Work out which bills must be paid and ensure that you keep up with those. For everything else - if you can take a low cost loan great but if you can move any credit card debits to interest free ones around just now, that will really help you through the strain. Only pay for what you can afford and don’t use your credit card.

Never go food shopping without a list -Always make a weekly menu. Sit down and decide what you want to eat for the week and then you prepare the shopping list, and if you only need bread go to the bakers and not the supermarket. Support your local shop rather than your supermarket. It is an excellent way of seeing how much you are spending where and cutting corners if you need to. Fruit & veg from the veg shop and meat from the butchers will really help you see what is happening with your pennies. The problem with the Supermarket is we forget what we went in for and come out with a load of "bargains". Problem being, a bargain isn’t a bargain if you didn’t know you wanted it in the first place.

Make a menu and take a list. Shop on line if you lack time. It can often save you money too. You are far more likely to stick to lists (and New Year diets) when you shop on line. You get an extra hour or two in bed, get up at 10am on Saturday to the delivery man bringing you breakfast (alright not quite in bed), but you avoid the stress of checkout and all those extra dents in your car door from those angry or tired early morning shoppers too.

Start the New Year off with a meat free month - Plan some exotic meals on that menu of yours using vegetables and spices and lots of warm breads. Curry’s are wonderful with or without meat so try them, vegetables with Couscous is amazing, Pasta and Sauce without the meat is light and yummy. Simply search the internet for a few recipes and make them your own. You will be amazed at what you can do. The cost of you weekly shopping should reduce by at least a 1/3 without meats. If you have more time than money use it wisely.