Better Financial Health in 15 Minutes (or less!)

Sneaky Expenses: How to Keep Your Budget Intact

• Stacey Hyde

Share episode

Dive into a world where the smallest of expenses become the biggest threats to your financial health. Explore how hidden costs, from credit card fees to energy waste in your home, can silently deplete your budget in ways you never anticipated. In this episode, we unravel the intricate web of sneaky expenses and arm you with practical advice to combat them. You'll learn about the often-overlooked consequences of carrying even a small balance on your credit cards, leading to hefty interest charges that can eat away at your finances. We'll also discuss how your daily routines can inadvertently lead to inflated utility bills due to appliances that draw energy even when not actively in use.

The podcast encourages listeners to adopt easy yet effective strategies to minimize unnecessary costs, ensuring that your financial health remains strong. By being mindful of these hidden expenses and remaining vigilant against fraud, you can take significant steps towards better financial wellness. Join us for this insightful conversation and empower yourself to make smart financial decisions. Don’t forget to subscribe, share your thoughts, and leave a review!

Envision Financial Planning. 5100 Poplar Avenue, Suite 2428, Memphis, TN 38137. (901) 422-7526. This communication is strictly intended for individuals residing in the United States. Advisory Services offered through Envision Financial Planning, a Registered Investment Adviser.

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Stacey Hyde and I'm back for another episode of Better Financial Health in 15 minutes or less, and while we've talked about subscription services and things like that, today I'd like to talk about the sneaky expenses eating your budget and how to stop them. So one of the things that you may or may not be aware of is credit card fees. If you pay your balance off in full every month, you get 25 days to pay for anything you've bought that month. But if you carry over even a dollar from the prior month, you're going to pay interest from the moment that charge hits your account until you pay your bill. So if you have a balance on your credit cards which sometimes happens should be avoided but if you do then you should be making payments for those things that you use a credit card for, say, getting gas or going to dinner with friends. Pay that off as soon as you get home. I do agree that it's safer to use a credit card than your debit card anytime your card is away for you, or at gas stations, where those are subject to scammers a lot. So it is safer, but you want to as soon as you get home, you want to log in and make a payment so you don't incur interest on that. That will save you a lot of money, because those credit card interest rates oftentimes are above 25%. That's a lot. So what that means is, in a year, if you carried a $100 balance, you'd pay $25 in interest. Well, I think you could come up with a lot better uses for that $25. So that's really something that you want to pay attention to. Also, if you're somebody who pays off your credit card every month but maybe you travel or mail's not reliable, you may want to set your credit card up for automatic payment so that you automatically pay the full balance and you never have to worry about late fees. Now, if you are late and there's a reason for it, oftentimes calling the credit card company if that's not your norm, if normally you pay everything on time but you forgot one time making that phone call will often get them to waive that late charge and fee and you won't be subject to that. So it can be worth, you know, $40 for a quick phone call.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that can happen and I must admit I'm guilty about this too a lot of appliances pull a lot of energy even when you're not using them, just by keeping them plugged in. So, yeah, it can be a pain to have to plug and unplug or maybe just put them on a power strip or a lot of our connected devices. They're always using energy because they're connected. Well, if you don't need them and you never use them when you're not home and you don't need them to be on your Google Nest or something like well, nest is your thermostat, that actually saves you money by lowering your costs. But a lot of things that we have plugged in are always using energy, so it's better to just pull the plug on those so that you're not always doing that, and that, as you know, during the winter months, when our utility bills tend to be higher anyway, that's a way to really sort of lower those costs.

Speaker 1:

And you also do want to just double check your bills and make sure that there are no charges that are showing up that you don't expect. And also, if you don't have your credit card enrolled in Apple Pay or Google Pay and you get a notification that something has happened there this happened to my son recently you want to definitely call your bank, stop your card, because that means that there's been attempted fraud. Somebody has your account number. If they're trying to do that, been attempted fraud. Somebody has your account number if they're trying to do that. So you want to make sure that you are paying attention, looking at your charges, and there's nothing there that you don't recognize, because the fraudsters are getting better.

Speaker 1:

I know it's annoying to always have to get a code to log in, but that is your best defense about keeping people out of your account. So it's just a couple of little ways that you can lower your cost without really changing anything. Just, you know, unplugging a couple of things, paying attention to what appliances you're using. For example, one of the things that we found to save us on our energy cost is we use our air fryer a lot more instead of our oven, because that takes a lot longer to heat up. It uses more energy versus the air fryer there. So there are some things that you can do that are small, aren't a big chore, but can save you money over time. Thanks so much for tuning in. This has been another episode of Better Financial Health in 15 Minutes or Less.