To save up for your survivalist budget you will need to reduce some of your living expenses now. This is also good for you psychologically because teaching yourself to live with less now will help you cope later if a disaster does hit.
Entertainment, leisure activities, and lifestyle are often the first things to get cut when tightening the financial belt. It’s unfortunate, but at the same time, this can save you quite a bit of money. Hobbies can be expensive, so it makes sense that this might be an effective way to reduce spending.
Entertainment, leisure activities, and lifestyle are often the first things to get cut when tightening the financial belt. However, even though cutting yourself off entirely from your hobby (whether it be movies, bookscomics, golf, or anything else) might be a good way to reduce spending, it may not be entirely necessary. In fact, leaving some money in the budget for relaxing activities is actually healthy and much-needed! You can figure out how much and what to cut by using a simple money management program or personal money management software.
In fact you keep your wits about you; you can savor the joy of indulging yourself without the guilt of thinking about how it’ll ruin your budget. There are quite a few ways to go about this.
Similar to the grocery cards these loyalty cards don’t so much give you access to sale items (though they can often add an additional discount on sale items), rather they reward you with gift certificates or cards for spending a certain amount of money.
The standard rate is usually around $5 for every $100 spent, though it’ll vary from store to store.
Many times, the store will have some sort of event where you can earn double or triple points. Even if they don’t, the points don’t usually expire, so you can work at your own rate to get to your desired number of points and your money-saving reward.
For example, some bookstores offer a rewards program as well as a blanket discount for their preferred customers. This works in your favor on two fronts and if you can find a bookstore that has such a setup, it’s a great way to save money on things that you were going to buy anyway.
Some loyalty programs will offer a discount of perhaps 10% off the price. Depending on what state you live in, this won’t do much more than negate the sales tax, but money is money and it can add up to significant savings.