How are you cutting back to make ends meet? Almost everyone is reducing their spending as rising inflation is making the cost of living increasingly demanding for Americans.
Even those in the higher tax brackets are finding themselves living from paycheck to paycheck.
Read More »The signs of trouble are everywhere.
A growing number of parents are facing challenges in providing meals for their children, according to a survey by No Kid Hungry, a national campaign aimed at ending childhood hunger in the United States. Food prices rose 6.5% from February 2022 to the same month in 2023.
Not only lower income groups, but also middle income groups are being hit hard by rising food prices.
The challenges do not stop there, however. More than half of those with household incomes between $50,000 and $99,999 cite inflation as their major financial concern this year, according to a survey by TaxAct. For most consumers whom TaxAct serves, their tax refund is the largest paycheck of the year, says Curtis Campbell, president and CEO of TaxAct.
If you, too, are battling to make ends meet, you might want to check the ways in which others are reducing their spending. Perhaps you will find additional ways in which you can make your money go further.
Ways in Which People are Coping
To help you, we have put together a summary of the ways in which Americans are coping based on recent surveys by online money manager PayPal and U.S. News & World Report. See how you fare.
Here are ways people are cutting back on their spending:
• Turning down birthdays, wedding invitations, and even dates in which spending money is involved.
• Spending less on gifts for friends and family or cutting them out altogether.
• Going out less often if it means spending money.
• Hunting for coupons and discounts when shopping to stretch available dollars. This is particularly true for those items that people regard as necessities and feel that they cannot live without.
Americans’ interest particularly in coupons is growing, says U.S. New & World Report. Americans are most interested in promotional codes to earn savings from online retailers. After those come free shipping coupons; rebate offers; and buy one, get one deals.
Shoppers have moved from clipping coupons in the Sunday newspapers to looking for coupons in the same places in which they shop—online.
Popular coupon advisers have hundreds of thousands of followers looking for money-saving strategies. Americans also use coupon websites to save money.
• Cancelling or failing to take out fitness memberships at gyms as well as group fitness classes in order to reduce spending.
Instead people are looking for more affordable ways to improve their physical fitness, such as walking, eating right, meditating and exercising at home.
• People are looking at new ways of avoiding wasting funds by managing their money more effectively. An example is putting your savings into high yield savings accounts. They are yielding higher interest rates as a result of the Federal Reserve increasing rates.
• Others are “earning more money” through loyalty or rewards programs.
Using specific credit cards for specific items that they would purchase anyway can earn consumers up to $1,000 a year in rewards programs.
• Many Americans are using websites that provide gas-price comparisons to find the lowest gas prices in their areas. Others take advantage of reward dollars that they can use to obtain discounted gas prices.
• Shoppers are concentrating on special days in order to secure lower prices on non-necessities. The most popular day is Black Friday, followed by Amazon Prime Day, and then Cyber Monday.
• A number of respondents say they are getting a hold on their finances for the first time. They are creating budgets and tracking their spending habits more effectively.
