How I Cut Costs by $500 per Month

By Tamara Monosoff of Entrepreneur.com



There's no escaping it: The economy is officially dismal. Many companies are being forced to increase sales and/or decrease costs in order to remain competitive or, in some cases, survive.

That's why we decided to do a little cost-cutting experiment last month at my business. Our goal: to shave $500 from our monthly business expenses. We made a game out of it, and it was really quite fun. Instead of just canceling services or slashing inventory, our strategy was to cut nothing essential.

In other words, we didn't reduce manufacturing, cut our health insurance or stop backing up our data. Instead, we set out to cut costs in ways we'd never even noticed -- by continuing to get the same essential services or products for less.

We approached it like a game, kind of like a scavenger hunt for savings, and we succeeded in cutting about $470 per month. That's $5,640 per year, which could cover a few mortgage payments or about four new laptop computers....