4 Extremely Easy Ways You Can Lose Money

COVID-19 was this year's most unpleasant surprise and ravaged economies and businesses the world over. Job losses and pay cuts have hit families and dented household incomes significantly. Considering the increased uncertainty of the entire situation, people have started following a more conservative lifestyle and looking more closely at their personal finances. Non-essential spending has taken a severe hit, and everyone is trying to cut back and save as much as possible. Having a sizable emergency fund has never been more critical. Today, it is a tool to combat the situation's unpredictability and keep you from dipping into your savings. But have you thought about the various ways you could be losing money? In your haste to cut down on unnecessary expenses, it is also important not to miss important existing payments. Here are four ways you can easily lose money. Read on:

1.  Forgetting About Your Insurance Premiums

Depending on your policy's payment plan, it may be difficult for you to remember your payment date. Amid your busy schedule, it is easy to forget the due date for your premium payments (especially if it's a half-yearly payment). But here's the thing – no matter what your reason may be, forgetting to pay your insurance premiums can cost you a lot. Depending on the amount of time that's passed, your policy might even lapse. This happens if you fail to pay the premium within the grace period. If this happens, you will have to pay revival charges to activate your policy, along with the premium. You may have to bear a late payment fee as well. Depending on your insurer, the revival charges itself may be around ₹500.

2.  Missing Your Credit Card Payment

Anyone who has used credit cards before will tell you that you absolutely cannot miss your monthly credit card payments. If you do, you will lose money in not one, but three ways. You will have to incur a late payment fee and penalty interest amount, as well as a little extra for purchases made in the next billing cycle. If all of this weren't enough, your credit score would be negatively impacted as well. In terms of the money you will lose, well, that can be quite a lot, depending on your lender. The late payment fee itself can range between ₹300 - ₹1,000 depending on the outstanding amount. Then comes the penalty interest, which is 3-5% on the outstanding bill. You will have to pay another 3-5% on purchases for the next month too.

3.  Delaying Your Utility Bills

If you manage the utility bills for your household, then trust me, there'll be a lot of them. Your mobile, electricity and internet bills are just three of the most popular ones among many others. If you miss any of these payments, you may end up spending a lot on only late payment charges. Depending on the outstanding amount and the percentage charged as a penalty, just late fees alone may cost you anywhere between ₹250-500.

4.  Forgetting to pay Your Loan EMIs

If you've availed of a personal loan from a quick loan company, then timely repayment of your loan EMIs is a must. However, there may be times where you have to delay paying an EMI because of other financial constraints. If and when that happens, you need to pay the overdue EMI as soon as possible, because the late payment charges are no laughing matter. While the late payment fee (in terms of percentage) varies depending on your lender, it usually ranges between 2-4%, which may seem trivial but can add up to a lot depending on the amount due.

In Conclusion

The four points mentioned above are some of the easiest ways you can lose money, which is why they are often overlooked. You may even think that you will never forget these four payments as they are critical. But your finances may have a different story to say in the future. On the other hand, if quick and easy loans are what you are looking for, KreditBee can help you out. Just download the KreditBee app from the Google Play Store, complete your profile, and leave it to us to process your application in as little as 10 minutes! To learn more, you can write to us at [email protected].