But if you stop to think about it, there are probably tons of realistic ways you can shuffle around your day-to-day budget to eliminate unnecessary spending. Saving money is more than just switching around bank accounts and planning long, long-term. With just a little bit of creative thinking and minor changes in habit, you’d be surprised just how much money you can free up in your budget from day-to-day– money that could go towards very good use in paying off your debts!

What got me started was this guide on How to Get Out of Debt. The article checks in with a source that doesn’t usually spring right to mind when you think about debt consultation: Oprah. (Seriously.) Far from being just a talking head TV personality, Oprah’s official site actually has a bunch of really cool life tips– including an entire section about money management.

Of particular use to the theme of this blog is a section on Oprah’s site called Oprah’s Debt Diet. Although there’s lots of cool debt-relief stuff in there, we’ll shelf most of it for another post. For now, focus on Step 2, and how to find your “Latte Factor.” Cute name, right? It captures the spirit of everything we’re looking to eliminate– unnecessary spending that draws money away from paying off our debts!

The “Latte Factor” suggests that if you took the $10 a day you spend on coffee (or other luxury goods like magazines, cigarettes, etc.) and funnel that money instead towards paying down your debt, in one year you’d be able to pay $3600 towards your loans. That’s a hefty payoff for skipping the morning Starbuck’s trip! There’s tons of other stuff you can identify and eliminate in your daily/weekly/monthly spending habits that are all part of the “Latte Factor.” And they can probably get cut out just as easily. Things like:

1. Store-bought coffee in general: Any coffee– not just lattes– can totally be made at home before you head out for the day. Whether it’s a regular cup of joe or one of those fancy frappuccino recipes, it’s really not that hard to make it at home where the price is much nicer!
2. Newsstand magazines: I’m not crazy; I know that you need your gossip fix from the scandal rags. But rather than impulse-buying new issues every month at the newsstand or checkout line, pony up the lump sum and buy a subscription to any magazine that you buy more than a few times a year! As for the rest of the once-in-a-while reads, you’d be surprised how much cool stuff you can find at your local public library!
3. Going out for lunch: What’s the point in shelling out cash for quick lunch-break meals that you won’t have that much time to enjoy anyway? Try making your lunch and bringing it into the office. If you team that up with some healthy food substitutions, you’ll be getting slimmer and out of debt!
4. Bottled water: While water is a definite necessity, buying it in a disposable, prepackaged way is absolutely not! Invest in a sturdy, reusable water bottle and fill it with ice and water at home. (If you live in an urban area, you should probably invest in a reliable water water filter, too. Fluoride bad!)
5. New hardcover books: That Stephen King is a regular writing machine! But just because he keeps churning out books doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to pick them up when they first come out in hardcover. Waiting for books to publish in paperback will save all you bookworms a real pretty penny. And if you’re in a real rush, you can also shop around for used hardcovers on Amazon.

Those are just a few of the bigger ways you can squeeze some more money out of your regular budget to go towards paying down your debt– there’s got to be more habits in your life that you can cut out! If you really take the time to apply what we’ve learned from Oprah’s handy Latte Factor principle, it should be a lot easier to regulate your spending habits. With just a few relatively minor changes in your everyday life, getting out of debt– while still a hassle– doesn’t necessarily have to be a decades-long struggle uphill!