Tracey Baker:- Hi! I am Tracey Baker, and I am the member of the Financial Planning Association. I am here to discuss strategies to save you money. Right now, I am going to talk about cutting out avoidable expenses. The first thing to consider, is eliminating services you don't need. For example, telephone and cable extras add up. Which ones can you do without? May be call forwarding, 365 channels. Start by analyzing your monthly statements. You may be surprised to find how much you are spending on services that you never use or that you could easily do without. If you signed up for credit monitoring service, you can probably do without that as well. You can keep up, with what the credit bureaus are reporting, about you by checking your credit report regularly. You are entitled to a free report from each of the three national bureaus, once a year. If you access one of them every 4 months you'll have a good idea, of where you stand. Just go to www.

annualcreditreport.

com to get started.

Late fees and over limit fees on your credit cards are avoidable too. And they really add up, if they happen often. You may want to consider signing up for an automatic bill pay service, with your bank, if there is no charge. Or simply pay every bill when it arise, rather then waiting until the last possible minute. It's also crucial to keep track of your account balances so you don't spend more then you credit limit.

Bank charges you can control include ATMs that charge large fees, especially if you are making lots of small ATMs withdrawals, overdraft these. Meet with your customer service representative at your bank, to find that checking account that offers the best price for the way you use your account. You can consider changing banks, if you can get equivalence service for less money.

So these are just a few of the strategies on how to cut avoidable expenses. Next let's talk about ways to reduce your variable spending.