Focus Saving on Recurring Costs

If you need to make a onetime purchase and you find a way to save a few dollars, it is a good thing. At the same time, if you are going to put a lot of effort into finding ways to save money, it is almost always going to be more beneficial to focus your energy on ways to save on recurrent costs.

Saving $10 per month on a purchase is going to be more valuable over the course of a year than saving $100 on a single purchase. It is also going to be more satisfying and more informative to develop ways to cut back on your recurrent spending because most recurrent costs are necessary costs. Fortunately, finding ways to save is not all that difficult. Here are several suggestions to get you started.

Prescription Medications

Drug companies want your business. If your medicines are too expensive for your budget, you will likely ask your prescribing physician to prescribe something less expensive. Ask your doctor whether he or she has any money saving prescription cards that you can have. If your doctor does not have anything to offer, visit the website of the company that makes your medicine and look for prescription savings there. Often you can obtain a card that will give you a substantial discount or rebate on your first month’s prescription and good savings thereafter.

Become a “Distributor”

A few years ago, I started taking Vitamin D supplements. The vitamins were expensive — about thirty dollars per month. I looked for better deals but could not find anything that really seemed like a good deal. Almost having given up, I called the manufacturer and asked whether I could get a bulk discount. The manufacturer told me that if I bought a case of the vitamins, I could get the distributor discount. I did so, and by purchasing only twelve bottles of Vitamin D, was able to get almost a 70% discount off of the retail price!

Renegotiate

I have written of the power of renegotiation in the past but it is worth repeating. You probably pay monthly utility, cable, phone and other bills. Call each of your monthly service providers annually and look for better deals. If your service provider won’t give you a better deal, you can probably find another service provider who will.

Retail Discount Cards

Sign up for every retail discount program that you encounter and then make sure that you keep track of the discounts that are available to you. You know that you are going to have to buy groceries so make sure you take advantage of the bargains that stores offer to their regular customers. If you do not take the time to sign up, you are only giving money back to your grocery store. If you are a book buyer, it may be worth your investment to purchase a Barnes & Noble rewards card that offers a ten percent discount on all of your purchases. If you shop at Amazon, it may be worthwhile to purchase an Amazon Prime membership so that you will enjoy free priority shipping.

Look for Subscription Discounts

If you know that you will need to regularly purchase an item, Amazon will give you a fifteen percent discount just for registering for regular purchases. You can still get the discount even if you cancel after your first purchase.

How do you save on regular purchases? What is the best deal that you have found?