In February and March I lead a breakout called: Goal Setting for Financial Success And Prosperity at the Money Wise Women Forum in the Pacific Northwest. In preparation for the events and in doing the events I've had a some aha's of my own that I'll share over a few blog posts.
One of my goals has been to simplify my life so that it feels easy and in the process put more money back into my pocket that I can redistribute it more consciously and wisely.
If you're interested in either or both: having your life feel a bit more easy amidst the daily chaos many of us experience as we "work" to integrate work, family, financial goals and most importantly time for ourself then these posts will be of interest to you.
Today's tip: Save on expensive 411 calls by dialing an easy to remember access number.
Dial 1-800-FREE-411
My history and frustration with expensive 411 calls.
Although my husband is getting better, could be that I nagged him (and I do mean nagged) for about a week after opening each Cingular bill after noticing one month he had over $50 in 411 calls. I mean hello, why do you think they allow you to store every bit of information about your friends, family and work peers on your cell phone? Well I mean other than to track every aspect of our life...it's there for ease.
His excuses drove me crazy and I wasn't willing to pay $1.79 per 411 directory assistance call so I began to intercept his phone on a regular basis and program all of the dialed, missed and received calls with names after reminding him how much we would save next month because of this action.
Although there was resistance and tension for a while from both ends his eyes lit up with real recognition when I pulled the typical Michele Forecast which means I project out 10 years how much we would spend if we continued this habit and came up with great ideas of what we could do with the cash we saved.
Michele's 10 Year Forecast for our $50 monthly habit in monthly 411 calls = $6,497 lost to our bottom line.
I created a simple worksheet (which you can access below) that shows you how a seemingly small habit - $50 in 411 calls quickly added up. $50 per month meant $600 to our bottom line every year, in 10 years that would be $6000 plus annual interest of $497. I created a formula that compounds interest at 8% annually.
The big aha is that this $6,497 is money that simply evaporated because it didn't have the chance to appear because it was easier to dial 411 than program a phone.
Which leads me to...what habits do you have that help your money evaporate?
Use my attached worksheet to help you figure that out for your self, I'd love to hear what you learned. The only information that you need to know is your monthly total - the rest of the numbers will magically appear!
Download Monthly_Habit_Projection.xls
I've also added a few lines that may help you become more conscious and live in choice:
My habit is:
Now that I know what I'm spending, I commit to:
By this date:
My signature:
My creeping total that I could have spent more consciously: $
Enjoy,
Michele Corey, writing for Knee Deep: A dose on insight from your not always average home based business and Internet mom and WordStreamz: Real Estate Blog Marketing.
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How I'm saving money:
Free 411 Calls: read my post on how to by clicking here
SunRocket Internet Phone Service. Read my post here
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