Dropping vices. You might not realize it but that pack of cigarette or two that you smoke on a daily basis actually amounts to something substantial in a month. Try to look at your other daily guilty pleasures at well. Could be that daily Chinese take out or that extra can of soda.

Buy in bulk. Buying in bulk definitely is cheaper. However, keep in mind to focus only on items that do not have a shelf life, for example, paper towels. Some items containing chemicals have active ingredients that might stale.

Unplug all unused appliances and turn off lights. Often overlooked but appliances when plugged even if not in use, still leeches off a few a bit of juice. Light, even if you’re using energy saving fluorescent ones still consume watts of electricity. Turning them off prevents waste.

Drop unnecessary subscriptions. How many of your existing subscriptions do you actually get to maximize. How about your phone? Your cable TV? Your magazines? Your newspaper? How many of them do you actually use or read half the time in a month. You might just be able to drop one or even all of them.

Avoid flooring your car’s throttle. Some driver drive as if there’s no tomorrow. Heavy right-foot driving actually just wastes gas. You don’t need to tap your car’s ponies when driving. Besides, even if you build up speed and only brake shortly afterwards, you’re just converting all the force into heat. Get more mileage by tempering how you speed up.

Economist Angus Deaton and psychologist, also Nobel Prize winner for Economics, Daniel Kahneman analyzed 450,000 responses by Americans polled by Gallup and Healthways in 2008 and 2009. The participants were asked about their income; how they felt the previous day; and whether they feel that they’re living the best possible life.

The study explains that low income is not the cause of sadness itself, but it made life’s adversities harder to bear. For example, among divorced people, 51% who made less than $1,000 a month say that they feel sad or stressed the previous day, while only 24% of those earning more than $3,000 a month reported similar feelings.

The study doesn’t say why $75,000 a year is the magic number to be happy. Probably, at that level, people have enough expendable money to make them feel good.

But looking at the larger picture, the study also concludes that high incomes don’t bring you happiness; they only bring you a life you think is better. The more money people make, the more people feel that their life is going well. This makes sense, especially that past studies on money and happiness assert that it’s relative wealth or status (or how much more money you have than your neighbors) that affects our happiness.

So, in the end, it’s not really about having $75,000 to be happy. It should be about feeling happy even without having much money.

Source: Time

1. Learn Self-Control

You’re parents probably taught you this when you were still a kid. Before spending on something, think, think, and think. Do you really need it? Is it worth its price?

2. Take Control of Your Own Financial Future

If you don’t take charge of where your money goes, other people will find ways to (mis)manage it for you. Hint: unscrupulous commission-based financial planners.

3. Know Where Your Money Goes

Make sure your expenses are not exceeding your income. Learn how to budget. In the long run, keeping your recurring expenses low will save you money that you can spend for bigger, better things.

4. Start an Emergency Fund

Having money for emergencies can keep you out of financial trouble. You’ll never know what will happen tomorrow. As one of the finance’s oft-repeated mantras say “pay yourself first”.

5. Start Saving for Retirement Now

You’re getting older by the minute, so might as well prepare for retirement in advance. The sooner you start investing on retirement, the sooner you’ll be able to call working an ‘option’ rather than a ‘necessity’.

6. Get a Grip on Taxes

Income taxes are deductions from your salary. So, it’s important for you to know how income taxes work and how much you’ll be left with to meet your financial goals and obligations.

7. Guard Your Health

Avoid paying exorbitant medical bills. Apply for health insurance. Or simply take steps to keep yourself healthy.

8. Guard Your Wealth

Make a conscious effort to protect what you have worked hard for. Secure assets with insurances, like a renter’s insurance, if you rent, to protect your belongings in case of burglary or fire, or a disability insurance to protect your ability to earn income during extended times of illness and injury.

Again, you don’t need any special trainings or fancy degrees to manage your finances well. You can simply follow these eight tips. The last thing that you want to have is a financial boo-boo.

1. Don’t Assume You Can Afford It Too

Most people, even friends, don’t volunteer information on how much they earn. It doesn’t mean that just because you can afford the same things back then, it follows that you can still afford the same things now.

2. Be Honest

If you can’t afford it, say it. True and good friends will always understand.

3. Suggest Alternatives

Suggesting alternatives is better than turning an invitation down outright. If your friends invite you to dine in a restaurant that you can’t afford, suggest another restaurant that serves good food without spending too much. You can even suggest a potluck instead. In that way, they’ll know you still want to spend time with them without the extra cost.

4. Plan the Activity

Rather than steering your friends’ plans in different directions, you can plan an inexpensive bonding activity instead. How about a movie night in your place, a Frisbee game, or even museum visits? Quality time with friends doesn’t have to cost much.

5. Spend on What You Want

You should be the one to decide how your money is spent. Don’t go on a luxury cruise just because you’re friends are doing it. If you need to pay the bills, let them know that you’re rejecting the invitation not because you dislike their company, but because you have priority expenses to pay.

6. Save So You Can Spend

There will be invitations that will be hard to resist, like trips abroad or luxury getaways. No one is stopping you to save for these things ahead of time. Sometimes, spending a bit more is not so bad especially if you’ll value the memories for the years to come.

7. Minimize the Cost

Think of ways to minimize your expenses. You can eat before going to a fancy restaurant and order something inexpensive while with friends. Or while you’re out in a bar, order beer instead of pricey cocktails.

Friendship isn’t supposed to be costly. It isn’t supposed to bankrupt you. True and good friends will understand. And it shouldn’t as impossible to stick to your budget and keep your friends at the same time.

Conventional financial planning pegs the number to be 3-months’ worth of living expenses. The recession showed that it should now be at the very least half-a-year’s worth. If it’s possible to up it to a year’s worth, then better.

In case of such setbacks, your emergency fund should be there to make sure that you have ample flexibility to get back on track. It should, however, never run dry.

While it’s meant to cover your monthly expenses, you should, still, at the very least, make sure that you minimize its use.

Do odd jobs to cover daily expenses. Sell your old stuff to support your fund. Most importantly, cut costs.

Being jobless would definitely trim many of your daily expenses but with no income, you should be ready to give up some parts of your lifestyle. All your previous “necessities” (e.g. cable bill, dinners, deliveries, movies) will not be luxuries.

Try to get back on the job hunt as soon as possible. If you have a six-month emergency fund, then make the third month your deadline for getting work. This would ensure that you’d still have a bit of buffer left for other possible emergencies.