Spending can easily get out of control, even if it is spending on seemingly helpful, worthwhile tools and resources. Sometimes it’s necessary to cut back. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares how cutting your subscription bloat can free up energy. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Cutting costs is often a necessary aspect of business 00:38 – When pride gets in the way 01:12 – Successful entrepreneurs are willing to cut expenses if necessary 01:38 – A time to reevaluate 02:07 – Giving up pride 02:47 – Cutting costs will free up energy 03:34 – A helpful app 04:02 – Get good at managing your finances Transcript: Entrepreneurs sometimes must cut costs. If this weren't true… Just look at the big businesses out there that sometimes lay off employees in droves. Sometimes for a business to survive, it's got to cut away at the fat to be able to survive. But sometimes it is so easy to fall into a sense of pride, like, “I know what I'm doing, things are okay. I don't need to cut costs. I just need to be more consistent and make more money.” And, I mean, how many times have I or someone else or people in general thought that way that they could just go and make more money and solve all their problems? It's partly right. But many have had that experience where they weren't able to generate that amount and found themselves treading water because their income stayed about the same. Their expenses also stayed about the same or just went up. But if you think about the fact that successful people are those who are willing to do what others are not willing to do, that means successful entrepreneurs are willing to cut expenses, even if temporarily, if need be. Now I've heard people do insane things just to be able to meet payroll at times. I think in those cases it pretty much paid off, but I don't know how much I could recommend being reckless in that sense. But I do think there's a time and place to evaluate your finances. Look at all the subscriptions that have stacked up. Do you need those right now? Are those contributing to you? Are they helping you make more money or are they just eating away at cash reserves? As someone who's had to file for a consumer proposal, I can tell you that it is possible for those to keep eating away at your cash reserves to put you into debt. Subscriptions may seem harmless, but they can add up and even put you into debt.Click To Tweet So, we must give up pride. And I say that as if it's always an easy thing to do and it can be hard at times. It’s like, “Oh, I know what to do. I've got the Midas touch, man. I've got the golden finger. Everything's going to work out.” Well, sometimes it doesn't. And we can have a bias towards our success and that's a good thing, but sometimes we can go from success to success to success and suddenly encounter failure and go, “Well, that was the anomaly.” But the reality is that it's usually a mix of failures and successes on the way to your eventual success. And I think this is what I recognized about cutting expenses. What it does is it frees up energy. And this is something I noticed this last time I went and cut a few costs that were idle and not doing anything for me. When you trim away the fat, you don't have to think about it anymore. Cutting expenses frees up energy.Click To Tweet Then you can free up yourself and free up your mind to concentrate on ways that you can improve your financial outlook and improve your income. And what matters is your takeaway or your profit, right? So, if you haven't done some purging recently and things don't appear to be going well, it might be time to explore purging to look at what you can do to cut away some expenses that aren't serving you. And while I'm not sponsored by them or anything, maybe I should be.