**Seven Ways To Reduce Your Spending and Increase Your Savings In 2019**

While landing a job with a Fortune 500 company can make us feel financially fulfilled, our new positions can increase our cost of living and have us scrambling to make ends meet. On average, millennials, ages 18 to 34, owe about $36,000 – $42,000 in debt (excluding home mortgages). Furthermore, it has also been reported that 1 in 5 millennials will die without ever paying off their debts.

In this article, I will discuss seven things you need to evaluate in order to minimize your spending and increase your savings in 2019.

Luxury Coffee and Tea

Although a cup of coffee might seem harmless, a dollar here and there adds up fast. Professional millennials spend a minimum of $4 at high-end coffee and tea shops daily. Rather than hitting your favorite cafe, make your coffee or tea at home for less than $1 per day and save $1095 or more per year.

Unnecessary Shopping

Let’s face it, we rarely wear many of the expensive clothes and shoes we own. For instance, women spend at least $110 monthly on new clothing that only gets worn a few times per year. To save some money and our planet, please wear, clean and repeat shamelessly.

Luxury Dinners And Happy Hour

A good steak is a good steak, so technically we are only paying the high cost for the ambient and fancy environment. This year, I have reduced the number of times I eat at fancy restaurants from 8 to 2 every month (except when on work trips or away from home). And I have at most 2 happy hour drinks with friends at not so expensive bars monthly. Aside from saving approximately $4000, this strategy helps me take charge and control what I feed my body. Instead of eating out, you can cook your own food at home and enjoy your own company or hang out with friends.

Luxury Vacations

While having a well-paying job brings with it money to fund luxury vacations to Europe, Asia and smaller trips to Miami and Mexico, traveling multiple times in a year is a fast way to end up with an empty bank account. Keep your vacations to maximum two trips per year (one far location and one close location). If you can have one vacation, do that. By reducing your luxury vacations you can easily save $2,000-5,000 per trip canceled.

Where You Live

If you spend more than 30% of your paycheck on rent, you are likely to have little to no savings. Most millennials who decide to live in areas such as downtown Toronto and New York because they want to work close to home pay approximately $1,500-$2,500 for a tiny one-bedroom apartment monthly. In addition, the $30 minimum parking fee in downtown New York, Chicago, Toronto, Los Angeles can deplete your pocket very quickly. If you live far from your workplace, use the train and you may end up saving at least $6,000 – $8,000 yearly.

Wedding Expenses

If you are in your late 20s and early 30s, your friends will be getting married and want you to be their bridesmaid or groomsman, buy aso-ebi and attend their weddings. Since African weddings are big and expensive, the least you will spend on participating in a friend’s wedding is $3,000 (flight, clothing, shoes, money to spray and miscellaneous). Imagine having to attend 2 to 3 weddings yearly? That’s a whopping $9,000 yearly. To save some money, choose between attending a wedding or going on a vacation. If you decide to attend a wedding, make sure it’s one that you can afford and enjoy it like your vacation.

Long Distance Relationships

Being in a long distance relationship can be quite expensive. For instance, if your partner lives in Africa and you plan to visit him/her twice a year from North America or Europe, you’ll have to drop a minimum of $1,200 for travel expenses. Additionally, hotels, gifts and dining can cost $4000 or more. For those within Canada and US who plan to see their partners every month, flights cost $400-that’s $4800 yearly. So, before you go into a relationship, evaluate your financial situation and think about how this will affect your earnings. Are you ready for it?

If you can’t pay off your debts or buy a house despite making a 6-figure salary, I encourage you to use this article as a checklist to evaluate your spending habits and make some changes.

I can’t wait to show you how I decoded 10X by the end of the year.