How to Increase Your Monthly Cash Flow

In personal finances just like in business the bottom line is your monthly cash flow. What we would call cash flow is spendable income. Not that you would spend it all but that it would be there for your use should you need to. I read this article the other day which had some tips in it that I thought were pretty good and some not so good. So I have added some of my own to to help you save money each and every month. If you want more cash each month to spend or save try some of these tips.

Stop paying Uncle Sam

It always amazes me how many people take no personal deductions from there pay and give all their withholding for the government. Your giving the government tax free loan. You do not get all of your withholding back you pay in no matter how many dependents or itemized deductions you have. Think of this every year your property taxes go up. These are tax deductible on your Federal return. You can decrease your withholdings to compensate. So what if you break even or owe the government a few dollars. This way you will have more cash to use every month. For example lets say your taxes and interest increase by $600 per month. Thats a $7200 deduction come tax time. You could decrease your withholdings by $150 to $200 per month and have that much more spendable income.

Cell phones

Get out of your cell phone contracts and buy prepay you can save and extra $40 to $100 per month just by buying only the minutes you need. If you have to have cell phone this is the way to go.

Cable or Satellite

Get rid of unnecessary TV packages on channels you don't even watch. Is it really necessary having HBO, Showtime, and Starz packages. If you want to watch a movie rent a DVD. The movies on these channels are usually from many months ago anyway. Pay per view is extra so your not saving anything there. Just think of the money you can save by going to some very basic package. If you want to downgrade your Internet than you can decrease your broadband or go dial-up. However, I would never go back to dial-up either.

Get rid of your late model car

One good thing you can do to save some real dough is get out from under those hefty car payments and buy a used car for less. Trade down or sell your car and do what it takes to save money on auto that won't cost you so much. If you shop around this is a good option for saving some serious cash each month. Obtaining a reliable used car car can save you hundreds of dollars over the nest few years.

Get rid of the unnecessary

You have probably heard some of this before but go through your finances and cut any unnecessary expenditures. If you have more than one credit card narrow it down to one with the best rate. Us it for emergencies only. If you can cut any expenditures your not using or getting the full benefit of you can save some money to use elsewhere. You never know until you start tracking what your spending your money on. I am not firm believer in budgets cause they don't always work. What I do believe is somethings we can do without especially if we don't use it much. These types of things are usually painless to get rid of. Like with anything start small and build up. Once you can get rid of one thing than you can work on another. Its like giving up cigarettes you gradually smoke one less a day till you don't smoke at all.

You can probably think of other ways to save money and have more cash flow that you and family will find they are not using. So go ahead and give it a try.