- Your mortgage, and insurance/tax are some of the biggest cost items on your monthly expense sheet.
Discuss with your bank if they can provide some flexibility, either deferring it by a couple of months, or if interest rates are favorable, work out a refinance. Especially in the current COVID situations, most bankers are proactively providing these options. - Car loans and Auto Insurance
After the home mortgage, typically this is the second biggest expense. Evaluate dropping your auto insurance temporarily to collision only. It could provide a big chunk of cost savings. - Cut down other expenses. Check your bills
- Phone – do you need a large plan or for now, can survive with cheaper one?
- Food and Restaurants – Usually for many people, this can be a high cost. Can you start cooking food at home?
- Watch your spend – do not buy or take on new projects that would cost a lot of money
- There is no harm in checking out Grocery deals. Do not make it super complicated
- Just pay attention to deals online and make a call on what to buy from where and when
- You have the time so use it wisely.
- For example – our Local Sprouts has 4 strawberry boxes for 5 bucks. While in another store – you might end up spending 3:99 for one box.
- Also check out online articles – one I found interesting was – https://www.moneycrashers.com/ways-save-money-groceries/
- For online shopping, there are websites and browser plug-ins which automatically provide you savings options and coupons. Check out Wikibuy/ Honey etc.
https://www.joinhoney.com
https://wikibuy.com - If you own a home – Watch your water bill. If you were watering your yard 3 times a week, will it survive if you cut it to 2 times?
- You don’t want to kill everything out there but some of these things we don’t pay attention to. Most landscaping will adapt!
- Focus on getting your next job, but also look at temporary jobs out there.
- If you are good at Photoshop or any such tool, you might want to look at several GIG economy platforms out there.
- They do the marketing for you
- If things get too stressful, try Retail jobs.
- One story was about how someone took on a Grocery stacking job in the night.
- This gave him some money coming in to the household.
- If you go to church, network and let people know that you are looking.
- You will be surprised how many people might help you
- Revaluate your skills
- Just because your title said A, does not mean that’s the only thing you can do.
- Take an inventory of what you are good at. And I mean good at.
Don’t forget to Download the excel template. Link on this page below. It is a basic template to manage you are finances if you are laid off. It is also a good way to keep in touch with us for more content and templates.