Welcome back to wake up with chatter everybody. It's
time for stretching your dollar, our daily segment all
about consumer finance. And if you want to build
your savings, starting with saving just$50 a week
, that could have a huge impact. Joining us
with some easy to adopt advice on how to do
. Just that is Bobby Rell certified financial planner,
author of launching Financial Grown Ups and host of the
podcast, Wellness for Financial Grown Ups. Bobby.
Welcome. Thank you for having me. Of course
. So first tell us the top three ways you
see consumers wasting money. Yeah. Ok. Well
, first of all, literally wasting food because we
all get that, you know, they present so
well, you know, at those markets that we
love and we load up the fridge and then we
go out with friends, right? And then it's
all sitting there. So definitely be mindful of your
plans in the next few days or whatever it may
be with your perishable food and keep the oldest stuff
at the front and the newest stuff at the back
. It's almost like you're your own grocery store doing
. Oh, absolutely. You also want to watch
your subscription because we tend to add, we see
like for example, the streaming services, we see
a new show we want to see and then we
add and we add and we add same thing with
all the different apps and stuff. So go through
on your phone and just do a check. What
apps do I have? Am I actually using them
with streaming services? They will take you back usually
at a lower price. So don't be afraid to
cut back. You can even downgrade a lot of
them. So and finally, I want to mention
gift cards because this is a huge thing. Even
credits when you buy something and they put it on
a gift card, make sure you have a system
to keep track whatever it may be. It can
be an envelope, it can be taking pictures if
you take pictures and you have all the numbers,
that's all you need, right? And if you
know you're gonna, you're not gonna use it,
sell it and sell it for money. Yeah,
people forget about those gift cards all the time and
those companies bank on you forget about those all the
time. So how can saving even just$50 a
week eventually just grow to more something just small like
that. Yeah, it is real money. I
mean, the stats prove it. I mean,
we have high inflation but even if you got a
6% return after 20 years, you're looking at more
than$50,000. So these savings really do add up
and 50 bucks is really not all that painful for
many of us. Sometimes that would be as simple
as cutting out the morning coffees on our way or
having a reusable cup and doing the coffee beforehand,
which I know is so cliche. But exactly.
So how do you approach trimming those expenses? You
mentioned maybe cutting coffee out in the morning? Exactly
. You also want to take a look at where
you're, where you're spending is you want to be
negotiating everything that you can, right? So think
about where your money is actually going. Don't do
it all at once. You want to create a
system, you want to be aspirational, but also
realistic in where you cut back. Think about the
things that are most important to you keep those.
But things that maybe as you go through tracking,
I didn't really care that much about this. I
didn't really need to have that extra snack and really
think about cutting back on those things and also enlisting
an accountability partner. This is my number one tip
for so many different things that goes across all of
my money, wellness, um, engagement things.
Because if you have somebody else who's a partner in
this, they're going to keep you on track.
It can be a spouse, a partner, a
trusted friend and even a professional, but get someone
else involved. Absolutely. Because the communication is key
on all of that and knowing where all your money
is going is very important. Our thanks as always
to Bobby Rell, author of launching financial grown ups
and also the CEO of financial wellness strategies. Thanks
so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me --> .