The Extra Mile: 3 Steps to a Strict Financial Diet

A good financial diet can be useful in different situations. If you’re trying to repay your debts, going on a financial diet can help you allocate more money towards the repayment effort. For businesses wanting to remain competitive, going on a diet will bring overhead costs – and production costs – down.

A strict financial diet is more than just about efficiency. It is about taking active steps – going the extra mile – to eliminate unnecessary expenses and find new ways of saving. Here are the three steps you can try right away if you want to go on a financial diet.

Unnecessary Expenses

The best way to start your financial diet is by removing all unnecessary expenses. This may be a difficult thing to do at first, but you’ll get used to the new, bare bones lifestyle faster than you think. Think of the small expenses not as expenses, but as money stolen from your future.

The $3 coffee you buy every day on your way to work is more than $1,000 stolen from your future financial life. The extra cash you use to pay for brunch or lunch at restaurants can quickly become $20,000 a year stolen from your future as well.

Be brave and eliminate unnecessary expenses where you can. If you can live without the purchased item, you don’t need to buy it.

Save on Your Taxes

Another thing you can do when going on a financial diet is taking active steps to save on your taxes. There are thousands to be saved just by taking advantage of the right tax code. All that you need to make that saving is by taking the extra time to understand the rules and calculations.

The home business deduction, for instance, can save you $3,000 or more every year. The seemingly small discounts you can get here and there can quickly transform the way your account ledger looks, giving you access to thousand dollars to save in an instant. Look into US tax-exempt laws and you’ll also discover special cuts for special taxpayers.

The non-profit organization I’m in is a good example of ingenuity when it comes to finding ways to save on taxes. A quick 501C3 lookup by ZIP code will reveal the tax returns of most organizations in the area. Newer non-profit organizations can learn so much from these materials; individual taxpayers can too.

Beware of Temptations

Let me start this part by saying the money you save on a discounted item is actually money you spend on things you don’t really need. Discounts and other special offers can be very tempting, but that doesn’t mean you should buy an item just to get the discount. The extra pair of pants you picked up at a discount yesterday will still be an extra pair of pants you don’t really need once you have made the purchase, which means the money you spent on the pants is an expense that you shouldn’t make.

Stick to the plan and strengthen your heart. There will be temptations indeed, some more tempting than others. Use these steps we’ve covered in this article to help you access more savings and maintain your financial diet.