Wonder how you could spend all your money without you noticing? Ever thought of why you can’t save even if your salary is quite reasonable for your position in the job market? You could always blame the economy, and you could smite your employers for not giving you the raise. But you have to deal with the realities and find some way to save money with what you have.
Here’s a few money saving tips that you could use:
Treat savings as expenses. Usually, people treat savings as the amount left when the total expenses are deducted from the salary. But when you treat savings as expenses as part of your money saving tips for yourself, this means when you plan out how you would spend your money, you take out the amount of money that you want to save. In that way, you secure your savings even before you start spending. And when your savings have piled up, you could invest them into an account that piles up interests as time goes by. That could be considered as passive income on a long term basis.
Plan out your expenses. Arrange the needs from the wants, and prioritize the needs – food, bills, tuition, utilities. You do not need new shoes every week, and you definitely do not need a new phone or mp3 player every month or so. If you want to buy something out of your “need list”, separate a small amount for it every time you get money – meaning, save for it bit by bit and not just splurge on the item on one go.
Save your coins. The childhood guideline of savings your coins in a piggybank actually works. It follows the rationale that you don’t notice the small amounts you save every day until the time comes that you just realize that you have saved enough money to open another bank account. Focus on the smaller coins that you just ignore all the time. As an extra, whenever you have extra bills that, also would not hurt your budget for the following day, you could put them in the piggybank as well.
Do not spend what you still do not have. In the modern world, the curse of the credit card is making every consumer spend his money even before he actually gets some. And if you have a credit card, you would find this thinking quite familiar: “I like this item, but I don’t have the money for it. But my credit card would allow for it, and would have enough time to get money to pay for it in small amounts.” Well, that could be good if you are paying for emergencies and actual needs, but piling up on luxuries simply means spending money you have not earned and received yet for items that you could survive without.
Be faithful to your budget plan. Money saving tips are useless if you won’t stick with your plans. Even if you keep part of your money as savings, but you don’t keep them untapped, then the entire idea would not make the trick work. The key idea is discipline. The best way still to save money is to be disciplined and conscious about saving money.