If your job allows you to work remotely from home, or you run your own business from your home office or living room, you may think the costs involved are going to increase your household bills quite a lot, and it could deter you from working this way. However, you can save quite a lot of cash by working from home, and here are a few suggestions that might make it more worthwhile for you.
Fewer Clothes
You will not need to spend so much money on clothes, as a lot of the time you will not be seeing customers or clients. If you really want to, you could even work in your pjs all day and there is no one there to berate you for improper attire!
Of course, you need to keep a couple of work outfits in case you have to attend meetings, but you will not need working clothes for every day of the week.
Travel Costs
Travelling to and from a workplace not only costs you money, it takes up your time too. Just think how much earlier you have to get up every day just to get yourself ready for a daily commute. No matter how you travel to work, it is not cheap. Train fares, bus fares, or car running costs can all eat into your earnings.
Save yourself the cost of getting to work each day, and the hassle of the commute, and spend a bit extra time in bed.
Energy and Internet Expenses
You may think your bills will suddenly increase if you are working from home, but they do not have to. Energy costs are something you can look at reducing by looking at commercial energy suppliers’ deals on comparison sites like Utility Bidder. On a normal household tariff, you may pay more for your utility bills because of the extra energy you are consuming, but finding a great deal for commercial tariffs could save you a fortune.
Internet expenses are the same. You usually get a limited amount of data, and if you are spending hours working online, this might not be enough. Going over your data limit is very expensive, and you would be better off with a business package where your data usage is unlimited.
Food
You may well have been organised enough to take a packed lunch to work each day, but not everyone is, and buying food at lunchtime soon racks up how much you are spending. When you work from home, you can have what you fancy at whatever time it suits you.
Other Advantages of Working from Home
Working from home has other advantages than being cash efficient. You may have deadlines to meet, but you will be your own boss most of the time without other people looking over your shoulder. If you have family commitments, you can fit the work in around them, as most bosses are not too concerned about the actual hours you work as long as the work is done when it should be.
Don’t disregard the possibility of home working as you might just find it’s the best thing you ever did.
Disclosure: This article was written by a guest author.