In the excitement of starting up, it can be tempting to invest in things you don’t really need. When was the last time you took a step back, examined your business expenses and figured out where your money could best be used?

We asked eight entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:

“What’s one business expense that your company decided to stop paying for recently and why?”

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

1. Professional Organization Fees

“In 2013, I joined several professional networking groups and organizations. The most valuable organizations are the ones that provide opportunities to meet like-minded entrepreneurs with whom I have a lot in common. Membership fees add up (some organizations charge thousands of dollars each year), so I only renewed memberships with the groups where I was most engaged and have the best networking experiences.” ~ Brittany Hodak, ZinePak

2. Custom T-Shirts

“What a waste — it’s something that you always do when starting out your company. But you or people who work for your company are probably the only ones who enjoy wearing them. We used to shell out thousands of dollars on these things. Instead, we use that budget to give out massages to our employees. Nothing travels faster than news from an employee who’s just gotten a massage. They’ll show everyone how much they love their job.” ~ John Rampton, Adogy

3. Employees

“There are so many great domestic and foreign specialized service providers. The service provider is an expert in a specific skill. You can reduce the number of employees and the hassles they bring. It’s almost always less cost as well because you’re paying a flat fee versus the employees’ salary and all the government taxes. Better result for less cost.” ~ Joshua Lee, StandOut Authority

4. Our Fax Machine

“Every dollar counts. We realized we were very rarely using our company fax machine and paying for a dedicated line was a waste of money. With a scanner and an online faxing service, this expense can be eliminated entirely.” ~ Josh Weiss, Bluegala

5. Media Subscriptions

“We recently cut back on some extra social media and paid media subscriptions. There are so many great free platforms we can be taking advantage of instead. ” ~ Amanda L. Barbara, Pubslush

6. Office Space

“We’ve been testing the waters for years by letting employees work remotely. We use programs like Basecamp to manage our projects and keep transparency on what each employee is working on, and Skype to stay connected to one another. Being a small, tight-knit organization has worked in our favor and is one of the main reasons this arrangement is able to work smoothly.” ~ Brooke Bergman, Allied Business Network Inc.

7. Our PR Agency

“We worked with a PR agency for a long time that charged us a lot of money every month. As of June 2014, we stopped working with them. I realized that PR is something I can do myself, and so far, I have been very successful at it.” ~ Vladimir Gendelman, Company Folders, Inc

8. Business Cards

“When you can exchange information using your smartphone, why do you need to cut down more trees and have 5,000 spare business cards sitting on your desk because you got hooked into a “special discount” on Vistaprint or Moo.com? Saving on business cards that serve little utility allows us to spend more money on neat perks around the office that our team members actually value.” ~ Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep

Courtesy: Small Biz Trends

About Young Entrepreneur Council