Earlier this week a friend forwarded me the popular New York Times article by Ron Lieber where he outlined a 10-12 hour day he spent improving his financial life.  10-12 hours is a big time commitment for all of us busy young folks, but the message he sent to us should not be lost.

In the spirit of Lieber’s “Fiscal Health Day” I will give you some examples of how to save money and how to earn more by spending only ONE hour thinking about your financial health.  Take your lunch break today or tomorrow and focus on these few things.

Time is ticking, so let’s go!

For the Just Getting Started:

• Set up a High Yield Savings Account. I know a lot of friends that have been meaning to do this, but just never seem to get around it.  I wrote about setting up one of these accounts here.  It takes almost no time to set one of these accounts up.  If you go with ING Direct (where I am set up) send me a comment and I can send you a referral to net you an extra $25 bonus (the $10 bonus that I receive will be donated to a charity of your choice).  This should take no more than 15 minutes.

• Head on over toBillShrink and let them optimize your life (credit cards, cell phone bill, etc.).  This service does the hard work for you.  You will be amazed at the kinds of savings you can find on this site.  It won’t take you anywhere near 30 minutes to take advantage of their free service, but you may enjoy their site and want to stick around.  Its also worth checking out their blog titled “Shrinkage is Good”.

• While you have 15 minutes left in the Fiscal Health Hour, head on over to Vanguard and open up a Roth IRA.  I have outlined the benefits of opening a Roth IRA at a young age here, and since you have some extra time today, there is no excuse not to open yours up and start investing for your future.

For the Fiscally Healthy Looking For a Bit More Savings

• If you are already fiscally healthy, I still have a way for you to spend your hour, however it won’t be as fun for you as it was for the “just getting started” people.  You need to call up Comcast (or whomever your cable provider is), and sit on hold until you get to someone in the Billing department and negotiate! Tell them, “My plan is just too expensive, I don’t know if I can afford it being this high, and XYZ company is coming into the area with promotions on internet, television, etc.  I would hate to have to cancel my subscription, is there anything you can do for me?”
  • It is likely that you will get forwarded to their retention department immediately.  They will work to knock your plan down $20 or more a month, saving you money.  Unfortunately, this may take a full hour to accomplish.  Don’t get frustrated; if it costs an hour of your time to save over a few hundred dollars a year, it was well worth it, right?

Spending just ONE hour doing each of these tasks will pay great dividends in your future.   Think of how much better you will feel once you are fiscally healthy!

Please also take a look at Ron Lieber’s mini-documentary on his Fiscal Health Day.

If you liked this article, please leave a comment and tell me how these methods worked for you.

I came across the blog $10,000 After Tip Out this weekend and I wanted to share it with everyone.  This individual (her name is AK) is a waitress in Arizona and is currently trying to raise $10,000 to make a move to NYC to attend a prestigious fashion school six months from now.  Not only does it sound like she is going to be working hard for tips, but she is also going to have to curb her spending habits (we all know how expensive designer clothes can be, even if on sale).

She is just starting her blog, and I am curious to watch her progress over the coming months.  Typically I would say take $10,000 and throw $5,000 of it into a Roth IRA and let it sit there for four decades, but AK clearly has a goal in mind, and it is a goal that will change and hopefully advance her life significantly.  How can we all not support her in the challenge that she has put in front of herself?

I wish AK the best of luck, and I encourage everyone to give her blog a look and offer her encouragement.  The summer months in Arizona sound slow for the food industry, but I hope it picks up for her soon.

If you live in Arizona, please, tip your waitresses!

Statistics vary, but regardless of which source you look at, there is over 40% of working adults in the US that are living paycheck to paycheck (these numbers get up as high as 70%).  That is a lot of people that are one emergency or job loss away from being in financial disaster.  Now, if you are here on this blog, it means you want to do something about your financial situation, and you want tactical tips on how to improve your financial health.  I am not going to give you the standard “paycheck to paycheck” advice which is, “spend less than you earn”.  Even if true, the concept is tired, and not very actionable.  Below are some tips on how to maintain your lifestyle, but free up some cash that will help you build your savings, your emergency fund, or increase your debt repayments.

Avoid fees: We are surrounded by potential fees, fines, penalties that end up hurting our pocket book.  If you are going out, don’t use an ATM to get spare cash that charges you a fee (some of these can charge around $3.00 a transaction.  Ouch!)  Pay your bills on-time; don’t incur late fees by being lazy, or by hoping your bills will take care of themselves without you having to open them.  Pay your bills, it’s the responsible thing to do.  Don’t risk a parking ticket, even if you can’t find a spot near your destination; I am as guilty as can be about this.  I used to park wherever I wanted and hope that I didn’t have a surprise at the end of the night.  Most nights I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t throw away $500 over the past couple of years by not walking an extra few blocks or taking 10 minutes to find an “actual” parking spot.

Get rid of subscriptions: There is a ton of free media out there for everyone to consume.  Do you need all of those magazine subscriptions when most of the articles or similar articles can be read online?  Do you really need that ESPN Insider subscription for $50 a year?  Do you watch enough movies on HBO, Showtime, etc. to warrant both your premium cable subscription AND Netflix?  Get rid of one of them and you will still have an endless supply of movies.

Find deals online: There are coupons or specials for nearly everything online.  One thing a friend turned me onto last year was Restaurant.com.  Here you can by $25 gift certificates for $10. There is usually fine print, like you need to spend $50 to use the gift certificate, but you can easily save $15 a date by using these deals.  Also, there is a promotion right now through UPromise where you can get $25 gift certificates for $2.  That is great savings if you don’t know what you would do if you didn’t eat out every night of the week.   For specific stores, type into Google the retailer name and the word “coupon”.

Transfer a balance: Take advantage of new credit cards’ specials and transfer your balances to avoid paying interest for a few months.  If you have a high balance and are high interest rate, transferring to a similar rate but with an introductory 0% APR for the first six months could save you hundreds of dollars and allow you the freedom to start savings or building an emergency fund.

Boost your income: Take a part time job.  Knowing how much I work, you can sense I am a big proponent of this.  However, this is the best way to get out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle.  If you are making more money and you don’t change your spending habits, you are going to have a surplus. Furthermore, when you are working more hours that means there are less hours to spend.  Sounds like a win-win, right?

Work from home: In today’s age of technology, this is a legit option for most people.  Working from home has several benefits.  You aren’t paying for transportation to get to and from work (I pay $9 a day in metro costs, that is sizable), and you are less likely to go out to eat for lunch.  This could save you close to $20 a day each time you work from home.   See if your employer has a telecommuting option.  Doing this one day a week can save you anywhere from $50-$100 a month.

Budget: Most people roll their eyes at budgeting, but this is an effective way to cut your spending and build up a solid financial system that works for you and hits all of your goals.  If you are thinking about doing this, I would suggest you take a look at my post about tracking your spending.  Trent at The Simple Dollar had a great post about his one month challenge that can be found here.  Trent’s idea really takes two months, but is a simple way at looking at where your money goes, and at altering your behavior.

I hope these ideas are helpful and provide you with some motivation to cut spending or to find ways to save money while spending that will leave you with a surplus of cash at the end of each month.  Getting started is the hardest part, but if we each work hard enough, anyone can get off of the paycheck to paycheck merry-go-round.