A foundational part of achieving financial freedom is learning to understand and control your expenses.  In order to achieve a solid level of “expense control”, you must:

  1. Create a list of ALL your expenses;
  2. Question and seek to reduce as many of them as possible.

Here’s a quick example:

When completing my simple financial analysis form, one of my clients listed his monthly internet bill at $150.  He believed that to be a reasonable charge, while I questioned why it was so high.  As a result, I asked him the following questions in order to clarify the expense:

  1. What speed internet package do you have?
  2. Does the speed of the package you have match what you use the internet for? (i.e., if all you are using the internet for is sending and receiving emails, you don’t need an ultra high speed package).
  3. Do you have wireless internet?
  4. Are you renting your equipment from the cable provider or do you own it?

By digging deep like this, I was able to determine that they could switch to a much lower plan (saving them $60 a month), and that they could purchase a modem and router and save an additional $35 a month by not renting equipment from the cable company.  Making this one simple move reduced their internet bill by 63% and saved them $95 a month ($1,140 a year)!

My advice to you is to learn to treat all of your expenses this way.  You’ll be surprised at how much you can save and how doing so will pleasantly impact your finances.