How to Cut Cost After Being Furloughed (or Laid off)

Being underemployed sucks. A lot. One of the first moves you can make to ensure that you are financially stable while you have no income is to cut costs. This is a simple, yet effective way of doing so.

  1. Look at what you've been spending money on

    • You may be surprised to learn that you may spend too much money on eating our (or on twitter buying art from teenagers and college students in my case). It is good to identify where your money is going so you can identify your priorities. 

  2. Prioritize the necessities

    • The easiest way to prioritize your necessities is by dividing them into a chart like the one below. 

 
High Want.png
 

3. Eliminate the low needs, low wants first

  • These are not a priority at all and you do not need it to survive.

4. Next, eliminate the low needs, high wants

  • You’re not going to die if you do not have these in your life, go ahead and choose a few to take out of your budget

5. High need, low wants should be phased out next

  • If you have a lot of high needs but low wants and can get rid of one or two from your budget, then do so

6. High needs, high wants should never be eliminated

  • I repeat, do not eliminate any of these.

7. Lastly, start finding ways of cutting cost on the necessities

  • Couponing is a great way to save money on groceries.

  • Online shopping is a great way to save money on clothes, shoes, etc. Online plugins like Honey also help by finding coupons and promo codes to help cut costs. 

  • Groupon is great for finding discounted outings.

 

Here is what my personal chart looks like

 
High Want (1).png
 

Now that you’ve successfully cut some cost. Update your budget. If you need some help with budgets check out my blog Six Types of Budgets and the Six Categories You'll Find In Each

If you have any questions about cutting cost and blogging, feel free to reach out and comment below! If you like what you read, sign up for my newsletter so you are first to know when new financial blogs are posted!

Until next time :)

Briana Fountain