How To Cut Costs After EMI Payments Start?

We reckon that the monthly EMI (equated monthly installment) that you are paying against your home loan has turned out to be a huge burden. You now pay over twice the amount as your EMI when compared to the monthly rent you paid earlier. Despite the fact that you and your wife both are earning, it is becoming quite a task to manage your finances. There are so many other property-ownership related expenses—maintenance charges, for instance—that you did not factor in when you were making the budget for the entire thing. In hopes of a long time gain, there is a near-term pain. What could you do now to limit it?

• There is a substantial amount of money you spend on buying fuel—petrol or diesel or gas—for your automobile. If more than one member of the family owns cars and uses it for all their travelling purposes, the cost of travelling multiplies. This is one area where there is scope to cut costs. Government is working quite hard to improve the connectivity across the nation. Why not make use of the public transport sometimes while sparingly using your private vehicle?

• When you see your friends and colleagues posting pictures of their fun-filled grand vacations on social media, a sudden pang of restlessness grips your heart. Extreme as it may sound, let us try and give social media platforms that make us unhappy a skip.  A good deal of money is blown every month on maintaining internet connectivity. You enjoy uninterrupted internet connectivity in your offices on your phone. You may consider giving away the wi-fi connectivity at your home in case it does not adversely impact you in some or the other way.

Also read: Is Facebook Envy Shattering Your Home-Buying Plans?

• As much as you like to socialise, the truth is that you will have to put a cap on such activities to run easily on your existing income. You may not have realised earlier, but those frequent weekend parties and dinners have you dearly. For instance, a decent meal for two people in a decent restaurant would cost you nothing less than Rs 2,000. In case you go for 10 such dinner dates in a month, you would be spending Rs 20,000 a month. You will have to make the unkindest cut in this area. 

• There are many luxuries you enjoy as a property owner, but these luxuries do come at a cost. There are so many things that you earlier did to pamper yourself. This may include regular visits to spas and salons. Being a movie buff, you also indulge in watching every film that released every weekend. Let us remind you that you have an EMI to pay. You do not have to stop such activities altogether; you only have to strike a balance because you do have a new financial liability now.

• A great deal of customer behavior research is done for setting up retail stores. Things are placed in such a way that you often end up buying more than you need. Sorry to remind you, but you cannot afford the luxury to get carried away in such frivolities anymore. Make a list of things that you need and stick with that. Buy only the essentials.

• Depression and stress are the most commonly used words that define the modern lifestyle. Caught between the demands that our personal-professional lives pose in front of us, we often start suffering from these maladies. Most of us seek refuge in retail therapy to overcome the two ailments—we go out and buy clothes and accessories irrespective of their usefulness. In this process, we end up paying more than we would pay in case we decided to seek help from a psychologist. We do acknowledge that you do need to do this to keep your sanity intact, but might we suggest it be done sporadically.

• Earlier, you did not pay much attention to what kind of penalty you paid for making late payments. This includes telephone bills, utility bills and payments towards various policies. This is the time to make the calculation. You would be surprised to see the savings you will have in case you maintain the payment dates.