Saving to Earn

The following is a contributed post.

On this blog there is a lot of talk about ways to earn extra income. But what about ways to save money? If you really want to increase your savings, have an easier time paying down your debt, have more money for doing fun things, whatever, it’s just as important to save money as it is to make money.

There are lots of little things that you can do to save a few bucks here and there. A lot of the things people talk about doing to reduce their carbon footprints or go green will also help save money. Using less electricity, growing your own fruits and veggies, collecting rainwater, using solar chargers, etc—it all helps save money. But what if you need a big chunk of change?

Have you thought about moving to a smaller home?

Moving to a small house might sound like an extreme thing to do when you want to save money. The thing is, you don’t actually need a bunch of space to live comfortably. Just ask a minimalist.

What’s more, you can use the sale of your current house to both pay off your current mortgage, and potentially pay for a down payment on a smaller home. Or, if you are truly financially up a creek, you can stock whatever is leftover in savings and rent a place.

Another benefit to downsizing is that it gives you an excuse to go through your house and pare down. Paring down is great both for clearing clutter and making extra money. You can put the things you are thinking of selling up on eBay or Craigslist.org or you can hold a yard sale to get of it (or most of it) all at once. Whatever doesn’t sell can be donated to charity (which, depending on where you donate, should help you save some money come tax time).

If you want to pare down even more, you can store the things you don’t need to keep on hand all the time (holiday decorations, off season clothing, toys that are waiting for someone to grow into them, etc) in a storage unit. Storage units are usually pretty affordable (check out unclebobs.com for proof of this), especially if you live in a bigger city like Chicago or New York where living spaces trend smaller.

Living in a smaller home means that you will be spending less across the board.

1. Your utilities will be cheaper because you won’t have as much space to heat or cool (if you’re renting, water, sewer, and garbage are typically included in your rent so you won’t have to worry about them).

2. Your insurance will be cheaper (renter’s insurance is far cheaper than homeowner’s insurance).

3. If you’re in a house, you probably won’t have as much yard space to worry about keeping up (if you rent, landscaping is often included).

4. Smaller homes take less time to clean…which is really only a savings of time but is worth mentioning!

The fact is that there are lots of benefits of making do with a smaller space, especially if you need to save up or come up with a bigger chunk of money quickly.