Do you struggle with money every month and live paycheck to paycheck? If you answered yes to this question, it is probably a good idea to take a look at your budget. There are certain things you might be spending or buying that you are not consciously aware of, which can deeply hurt your budget in the long run. Here they are: 

1) Eating Out

Most people think short-term and believe that 10 or 15 dollars for a meal or delivery service here and there is not that much. However, eating out can add up to your budget pretty quickly. 

To resist the urge to eat out, you could try meal prepping, which is cooking your meals ahead of time, leaving them in the fridge, and heating them when you feel hungry. If you can’t live without eating out, you can also spare some money, just for that, each week or month instead of doing it every other day.

2) Subscriptions

With the extensive offer of streaming services and apps, it’s very easy to end up subscribed to too many of them. But are all of them really necessary? For instance, Amazon Prime alone costs $139 a year. So, consider canceling the subscriptions you use the least to help with your budget.

3) Banking Fees

Most people are not aware that banks can charge a wide variety of fees. For example, some banks charge a monthly maintenance fee that can be anywhere from $4 to $25. You can easily avoid this charge by finding another bank or service without it. However, you should also pay attention to other fees such as out-of-network ATM fee, overdraft fee, wire transfer fee, and insufficient fund fee, among many others.

4) Cable Services

Gone are the days when you need to pay for cable, thanks to services like Youtube and Netflix. You should analyze how much you’ve been using the cable services and see if they’re indispensable so that you don’t spend money unnecessarily.

5) Daily Coffee

Coffee prices can vary a lot depending on where you live or which shop you buy them from. But, let’s say it costs $3 per cup, and you buy one each day of the week. That will end up costing you $21 per week or $84 per month. Yearly, you’re spending $1008 just on coffee alone. For that reason, you should probably consider taking coffee from home.

6) Gasoline

Fuel prices have increased a lot in the last few weeks, which can affect most people’s budgets deeply. There are many ways in which you can spend less on transportation, such as using apps like GasBuddy, which reports the lowest gas prices in your area. You can also use carpooling services or use public transportation more often.

7) Impulse Purchases

Are you one of those people who can’t resist a retail sale and always buy something you didn’t need? It can be hard to break this bad habit, but it’s not impossible. For example, you could allocate a portion of your budget to such purchases. For more expensive items, you could try waiting for 24-48hs to see if you still feel the urge to buy that product.