If you could find a way to pay $1.99 for gas, would you tell others about it? If you knew that you could buy your favorite Starbuck’s drink for half the price, would you get excited? What about finding $50 on the street? Would that put a smile on your face the rest of the day? I love helping friends get creative with finances and find other ways to tackle problems such as gas prices. Many of my friends wish that they had my Toyota Prius, as gas prices here in the Bay Area are touching $4.55 a gallon. They actually don’t need a Prius, they can keep the same car or SUV that they currently own. How? Change the way they look at the cost of an item. Sure gas is $4.55, but the Starbuck’s coffee they drink cost $4.05 or a Pespsi from 7-11 cost $1.50. Get creative and look at debt elimination as a source of passive income. How can it be passive? You will continue to pay yourself each day, week, month, and forever. Each time you make a smart purchase or cut out fat, you will create passive income for your family.
Here’s a quick idea I discussed with a friend this weekend. He told me he can’t live without his cell phone for work and needs to come up with some extra money for gas and food. Well, what about his home phone? Yeah, but that’s only $30-40 a month he says. Well, since he needs gas and food, he should consider canceling the home phone. Also, think of that home phone as a passive investment that would make you $480 a month? If you could live with a cell phone as your primary phone, it would be similar to earning $480 a year in passive income.
Want another. Same friend has cable. I know, we all love it and have to have it. He didn’t think the home phone would save him enough money. His phone, internet, and tv is over $100 a month. What about cable and internet? He could use free internet. What? Come on, those darn banner ads? He doesn’t use the internet 24/7 and could also use his cell phone to check email. Cable? That’s going to be a hard one. He could buy rabbit ears and watch standard tv, or go without it. He needs gas and food for his family, saving or earning $100 extra a month is worth it. That’s $1,200 a year.
So many times, we think of having to earn more money. Sometimes we just need to cut back and think smarter about our expenses. Do we have to have a home phone or cable tv? What about just cutting out premium channels or long distance from your home phone? If you needed to earn another $50-100 a month to pay for gas and food, what would you cut out of your budget? If you wanted to create another passive investment stream for your family, what would you suggest you cut from your expenses? Would you consider these ideas a passive income stream or debt elimination strategy?
