3 Painless Ways To Cut Spending
MarketWatchs' Marshall Loeb Offers Up His Daily Money Tips
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(CBS/AP)
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From the August Consumer Reports magazine, here are three ways to cut spending:
Cheaper auto insurance.
Most people tend to stay with their car insurer for a long time, but they could be missing out on saving hundreds by shopping around once and a while. To find a better plan, start with the National Association of Insurance Commissioner's, www.naic.org, then click on NAIC States and Jurisdictions to find your state's insurance department. Here you can find comparative premium quotes based on standard customer profiles. Other sites to check where you can compare premiums include www.insweb.com and www.insurance.com.
Be smart about buying food.
According to the Department of Agriculture, the average family of four can cut down its grocery bill by $190 a month by shifting to a lower-cost mix of foods. That's a lot of money to save just by changing food-buying habits. You can adjust your habits by planning menus around sales on fresh poultry, fish, meat, dairy, and produce, and by making use of leftovers. Avoid costly prepared foods. And start shopping in lower-cost stores: Costco, Trader Joe's and Wal-Mart, to name a few.
Cut your credit-card balance.
If you have a credit-card balance, you're paying annual interest charges all the time. For example, a balance of $2,200 on which you pay 15.2% interest, means you are paying $28 per month. Eliminate that balance, and you'll save $336 a year. Of course, eliminating your balance is not easy. First you need to stop charging, then start paying more than the minimum balance each month until it's gone. To find the extra cash, have a garage sale or try some part-time work.
By Marshall Loeb
Copyright © 2007 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved
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