How I Used Zero-Dollar Swaps To Reduce My Expenses & Pay Off $155k
Paying off debt, regardless of your situation, can feel like a never-ending uphill battle. Layer a global pandemic on top of that and identifying a path to financial freedom seems like a complete nonstarter. Two years ago, I set out on a journey to be debt-free. While I didn’t start my journey during a pandemic, I did end it during one; and many of the tools I used to reduce my expenses didn’t rely on my finding increased income or giving up on saving money, both of which feel impossible to do in the current financial climate.
除租金外，我每个月最大的费用是杂货和公用事业。杂货是一项必要的费用，在没有债务的旅程中，这里的削减成本会令人难以置信。在您已经牺牲了预算中的其他事情以优先考虑信用卡或学生贷款时，将您最喜欢的商店品牌的谷物换成商店品牌或将肉换成负担得起的素食替代品。我知道我不想在其他所有方面放弃我最喜欢的食物，因此我寻找替代品来减少这些费用，即使不是完全否定了这些费用。
用户访谈
To reduce my grocery expenses, I signed up for用户访谈, a market research and user experience interview platform. Here, researchers at companies seeking to launch new products or enter new markets will publish a research study, and based on a profile that you complete when you register, you’ll be matched to studies that fit your demographics.
You’ll chat through a series of questions with the researcher and, in exchange for your honest feedback, you’ll be given Amazon or Visa giftcards, depending on the study. I spend about thirty minutes each week completing pre-screening surveys and participate in an average of two studies per month (usually lasting an hour each). Over the past year, I’ve earned $1,315 in Amazon gift cards on the User Interviews platform itself, as well as another $600-700 in gift cards from follow-up studies with researchers I met on the platform. That’s a total of $2,015 in Amazon gift cards that I have then used to purchase my groceries each month viaAmazon Fresh，允许我获得约170美元的免费杂货。
Amazon Fresh
通过将我的卡收入与亚马逊新鲜平台上的每周交易结合在一起，以及通常可用的优惠券，我能够零每月的杂货费用，而是将$ 170 Iwould havespent towards food, towards paying off my debt. Even though I’m debt-free now, I still participate in User Interviews and put the earnings towards my savings. The best part is – if you break down the time I spent on these, versus the money earned, I make about $67.16/hour. Well worth the time, in my opinion!
PayTime
If you’re a student, you can also reduce your monthly subscription expenses usingPayTime。PAINTIME是一个应用程序，要求您观看和评估各种受欢迎公司的广告。然后，这些公司能够根据您的反馈来改善广告。为了换取每月观看40分钟的广告（每周10分钟），您将获得12.00美元的奖励，用于诸如Netflix，Spotify等流行的数字订阅。我可以支付$ 4.99 Spotify+Hulu学生订阅和我的$ 6.99 YouTube高级学生以这种方式订阅。我通常会在上下班时（在流行前）或等待意大利面煮沸或在其他一些多任务的机会时观看视频。
Poshmark
您可能熟悉Poshmark, the popular clothing resale platform. I’ve had an account with Poshmark since 2012 and had sold one or two things over the past eight years, but in 2020 I really got serious about clearing out my physical closet and selling things I don’t wear.
今年年初，我在平台上只有100个左右的关注者。我大修了我的“壁橱”，并列出了50多种物品，并随着出售的价格增加了更多。自今年年初以来，我以1,081.53美元的总净收益（或平均每件商品30.90美元）出售了35件商品。我也是grown my “closet”following对于近10,000个关注者来说，这意味着当我列出新商品时，它们倾向于比年初更快地销售。如果您打算在Poshmark上出售，我强烈建议您至少列出10件物品，以赋予“全壁橱”的外观，并像其他任何社交媒体平台一样与社区互动。另外，请使用您要销售的物品的原始库存照片以及在中性背景下在光线充足的设置中拍摄的照片，以使您的壁橱外观和感觉更加凝聚力。借助您从Poshmark赚取的收入，您可以将其偿还债务，用它来减轻您全年购买的任何新衣服的成本，或者两者的组合（这是我所做的）。
The Takeaway
这只是您可以用$ 0替代费用替换费用的许多示例，并在此期间取得债务收益目标的进展。我为减少费用所做的其他示例包括与checking e-books out of the library和reading them on the Kindle app on my phone, using thecommuter benefits I get at work to pay for UberPools当我无法进行公共交通时trading plant cuttings与朋友而不是购买新植物。
Along with applying financial discipline with my paycheck, these practices were integral parts of my debt-free journey, eventually paying off six-figures worth of student loan and credit card debt in just under eighteen months. These three tips may not seem like much at face value, but over the past year they’ve added up to an extra $272.13/mo in debt payments that I wouldn’t have been able to manage otherwise. Nearly $3,300/year in extra debt payments can mean ~$200 in student loan interest savings or ~$550 in credit card interest savings, even if you’re not trying to pay off your debt quickly! By adding these in with other cost saving measures like the additional examples I mentioned or by moving to a less expensive apartment when my lease was up, I was able to save $1,000/month in expenses over the duration of my debt-free journey.
Image viaPexels
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