Save money: read books

You can cut entertainment costs significantly by developing a love for reading. Reading books is inexpensive or even free entertainment. When compared to some hobbies or forms of entertainment, you can put hundreds or even thousands of dollars in your cash reserve every year just by developing a love for reading. If you are looking to save money on individual entertainment, picking up reading as your hobby can help you put an average of $630 a year in your cash reserve.

The average adult spends just over 5 hours a day watching television, or 150 hours a month. That means an average adult spends almost as much time watching television as they do working every month. Television costs you something to watch. Basic cable is typically about $30 per month. Because a lot of people upgrade their cable, the average cost of cable television in the United States is around $50 per month. That means you are paying $1.60 a day to sit and watch the TV. It's pretty cheap entertainment, but it isn't renewable. If you shut off your cable and read instead, you could be saving yourself your entire cable bill every month to put into your cash reserve and you can get the same entertainment again and again without any added cost.

The best way to read for entertainment is to rent books from your local library. With a library card, you can check out as many books as you can read and have them for three weeks to a month for free. A library card is free if you live within the area the library serves. If you live outside the limits, the library charges a nominal fee of around $10 per year for you to obtain a card. Even if you live outside the area the library serves, you are still saving $590 over the average cost of television per year, which means if you turn off your cable and read instead, you can put $1.60 per day in your cash reserve or $590 per year.

The average teen plays eight hours of video games a week while in school, and about double that when not in school. In order to play video games, you need a gaming console and games, neither of which is inexpensive. Game consoles when first introduced on the market can range in price from $500 to $1000. The prices go down the longer the console has been out, but they can still cost several hundred dollars. Games average $12 in price, but if they're new, they can cost anywhere from $20 to $50. If you play games online you will pay a monthly fee of around $20 on top of the price of the game and console. The average gamer purchases a new console every three years and new games on a yearly to monthly basis. Your teen could be spending an average of $675 a year just on gaming ($335 for the cost of a $1000 console split over 3 years + $100 for 2 new games a year + $20 x 12 months for the online fee). If your teen picked up reading instead of gaming, they could be putting as much as $56.25 a month or $675 a year in their cash reserve. Even if you bought two books a month rather than going to the library, you would still save. An average book costs $15, so if you were buying two books per month, you would still be saving $26.25 a month or $315 per year over video games to put into your cash reserve.