When I was younger, I used to think life was going to be so much easier as an adult. I’d be free to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and buy anything I wanted. What I’ve learned is I can eat ice cream anytime I want, and nobody is controlling my bedtime, but the costs of being an adult sometimes control my life.

Real Talk About Bills

The sheer quantity of bills that are an apparent requirement these days is staggering. Rent or a mortgage, insurance, electricity, water and any other utilities are the minimum. Then there is internet access, which is practically a requirement these days, possibly a car payment, tv programming, and maybe a credit card or two. Add on student loan payments, and it’s overwhelming!

Having too many bills or high payments can be stressful and hard on yourself or your family.

What Can You Do About It?

I see this as two problems, stress from worrying about bills and figuring out how to reduce your monthly expenses. Let’s look at the stress part first.

There are countless ways to deal with stress; most of what I have read says you can’t deal with stress until you remove the stressor. I don’t completely agree with that myself. For me, stress is something that multiplies even if the cause of stress doesn’t change. So, if I’m looking at a pile of bills that overwhelms me, the best thing to do is get my mind off the problem for a bit.

Some great ways to do that are also healthy habits, so it’s a win-win! A few suggestions are exercise related. If you aren’t big into working out, try just taking a brisk walk, or going to a playground and using the swings. As a kid, I remember being breathless but happy after swinging myself as high as I could go!

Meditation can be a terrific way to relieve stress, there are videos on YouTube or try an app for your phone. I am a big fan of Insight Timer, which is free and available from both Apple and Android platforms.

The bigger issue is getting control of your bills instead of letting the bills control you. I have written before about debt topics, and here is a link to some of those posts. There are many ways to reduce bills, and depending on the type of bill, different approaches can be used. Utility bills can be reduced by being more mindful around the house. If your water bill is high some easy things to do are take shorter showers, make better use of the dishwasher, don’t run the water while you are brushing your teeth, and be water-wise about your yard and garden needs. If your bill is still high, maybe there is a slow leak somewhere. A dripping faucet or running toilet can waste a lot of water; both are fairly simple to fix yourself. Electric bills can be controlled by either switching providers (if you can do that where you live) or by using less power.

Coming up with extra money is a challenge, but there are some proven ways to make extra money. Making one extra mortgage payment a year on a conventional 30-year note can shave as much as 4 years off and quite a bit of interest off of the total! The same type of effort will work for student loans and car loans, too.

What About Other Bills?

That’s where BillCutterz can help you. All we do is negotiate the best possible rates for our customers on their phone, cable/satellite, internet, and other monthly bills. Take a few short minutes and sign up on our website, then our team of Savings Experts will do what they do best, save you money and relieve some stress for you. Life should be about living, not stressing out.