1. How much do you really use it? This especially holds true for anything that you pay for regardless of whether or not you use it, like membership fees to a club. Be realistic and judge the cost vs. value based on how much you’d actually use it, not how much you might conceivably use it. For instance, Costco has a great price on vitamins, but that’s the only thing I’d normally purchase there. So once a year or so, I just ask my friend to pick up some vitamins for me since she has a husband and family, it makes sense for her to have a membership, though it doesn’t for me.

2. Think twice before making a one-time purchase into a recurring expense. On several occasions I’ve enjoyed reading an issue of a magazine, and then in my enthusiasm signed up for a subscription, only to find out that I don’t end up having time to read it on a regular basis. (Or maybe the subsequent issues don’t turn out to be as interesting as the one that caught my eye at the bookstore.) Yes, signing up for a subscription or recurring service can save money… but only if you’d definitely be making that purchase every week or month anyway. If it’s a “once in a while” purchase (like how I am with newspapers), then it’ll be more cost-effective to pay the slightly higher price to just buy it individually when you want it.

3. Calculate the yearly cost. Somehow this tends to bring home the impact of smaller recurring expenses… is that $3 daily latté actually worth $1000 every year? Seeing the numbers can be a great motivation to make small but effective changes. I really enjoy going out to coffee shops, because I find them a great place to work (I’m writing in one right now, in fact) but there’s a good reason why I’ve taken to drinking regular coffee ($1) rather than espresso-based drinks ($4).

4. Look for alternatives. Many recurring expenses can be avoided by making a one-time purchase instead; even if the one-time purchase is more expensive than a single “dose” of the recurring expense, it will often pay for itself over time. Consider the purchase of DVD player and subscribing to Netflix (or visiting your local library’s DVD section) instead of paying for cable every month.

5. Be ready to cut it off. Even if a recurring expense makes sense right now, six months from now things may have changed. You may decide you don’t actually like the magazine that you subscribed to, or you’ve discovered that you enjoy going for a run around the neighborhood better than going to the gym. If you’re not using it, cancel it! Don’t pay for a service or product that you don’t need or want. For instance, I discovered that I really liked having a cell phone, and decided to drop having a land line. It seemed weird at first, but there was no sense in having an overlap in utilities that cost me an extra $30 every month.

6. Consider adding some “good” recurring expenses. Yes, adding! We’ve probably all heard the “pay yourself first” idea for personal savings (and it’s a good one). Why not apply it to other good causes? If you’d like to give money to charity, but don’t have a plan for doing so, good intentions often end up going nowhere. I discovered that “I’ll donate to that organization one of these days” pretty much always meant “never”! So think about what’s meaningful to you, and consider making it a recurring expense so that it actually happens. For me, my contributions to my church became more mindful and thus more meaningful when I sat down and calculated a percentage that I’d give, and then made it the second most important line-item in my budget (right after my mortgage and utilities).

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