The Best Money Saving Tips
5 Tips for saving money
i'm back with more saving tips and in this article i'm going to share with you the best money saving tips wich i personally favor, and how to save your money fast using the best strategy
these are the tips that have worked for me over the last few years and i have followed these at times when i wasn't earning enough or when i lost my job and even now after i have reached most of my financial goals please be sure to read all the way until the end.
when i'm going to tell you how the five dollar trick can help you save thousands of dollars i'm gonna start with tip number one which is:
Automating savings :
automating my savings has been a complete game changer for me i have come so far from the days of having to stuff money on envelopes or even having to use apps for budgeting because at this point in my financial path i know exactly where everything is going and i am very fortunate to be at a place where i am debt free and i have also uh completed my emergency fund so the way i automate my savings is by setting my saving goals for the year like i already said i don't have to worry about saving for my emergency fund because i am pretty content with where my emergency fund is at .
now that doesn't mean that saving money stops right you do have to kind of anticipate what things are coming throughout the year and try to save for those and for me this year that is pet expenses because i do have a senior dog i also have a trip to puerto rico coming up and i am saving for christmas so as far as i'm concerned those are my only priorities when it comes to saving because i already know that those are my top three priorities for the year and i have already set a dollar amount for each i know how much i have to put on those accounts each month every single month at the exact same time i have that amount of money from my checking accounts going straight into those savings accounts i am essentially treating those accounts as bills so then that becomes really easy and effortless to manage my income because everything has been taken care of if you get into the habit of automating your savings even if that is 20 a month 50 a month this is going to benefit you in the long term because this is helping you create better habits
when it comes to managing your money at number two i have:
Cutting down on food :
i feel like i cannot make any of these saving aricles without talking about how much food impacts the way we spend and it is so easy to underestimate how much money we spend on food because it is such a vital necessity and a vital part of our everyday and nobody wants to be stingy when it comes to budgeting for food right .
as someone who used to go grocery shopping without a plan in a budget i know how intimidating it can be to all of a sudden start tracking your food and start making cuts but there are small and simple steps you can use to start saving money on food for example:
you can start buying in bulk and this can apply to groceries as well as take out i live in a two-person household and this is something that works really well for my husband and i we know what we like to eat on a weekly basis and we like to buy those things in bulk we also love to do that when it comes to ordering takeout whenever possible we do order the family size meal just so we can have extra food for a little bit less money for another day for the day after.
another thing i recommend when you're looking to cut down on your food is to become a food minimalist you can absolutely approach the way you eat with a minimalist mentality for me that looks like using fewer ingredients when i'm cooking using the same ingredients and actually eating the same foods
the next tip i swear by is:
treating myself or budgeting for things that are not actually needed:
i believe that treating yourself can help you sustain saving habits in the long term this is going to of course look different for everyone depending on how much you earn how much disposable income you have available in what your financial priorities are just like with food i don't believe that restricting your spending in a way that doesn't allow any room for you to spend on frivolous things is just not going to work if you think about it in terms of a diet right when you're dieting and you're cutting things out and you cut things completely you feel like those cravings are a little bit more intense than they usually are and it's the same thing with money if you are constantly working towards financial goals saving goals and you do not have any room in your budget for freedom it could get really tiring it could get really defeating and i feel like that's the kind of thing that makes people just give up all together.
now the only way this is going to work of course is if you are organized with your finances every dollar is accounted for you know how much money you can allocate for frivolous spending and you budget for them the way i'm able to spend frivolously or freely i think i like the word freely better i set a budget every single month to go to a specific account and this is my free spending account and this account is connected to paypal and it also has a debit card in this account i only keep money that i can spend without any guilt without derailing my other financial plans this is spending money this is free spending money this is play money because everything else is accounted for budgeted for automated as i mentioned on my very first tip this works right and you can do that with twenty dollars a month fifty dollars a month a hundred a thousand whatever your financial situation can accommodate and this will give you some freedom
become less social:
it has been my experience that when i am in a place where i need to focus on a financial goal or i have to save money for something i have to take a step back and spend less time around people and don't get me wrong i do think there is a justification for spending money to spend time with friends and family right life is all about experiences and the experiences that we share with those who we love but sometimes you have to say no and you have to prioritize that one thing that you're working towards because nobody else is going to prioritize it for you if there's one thing we have learned from the personal finance community is that most people are walking around not knowing how to manage their finances i'm sorry but that's the truth so when you're spending time with people that are not prioritizing their own financial health what is going to incentivize you to be disciplined for however long you have to be disciplined in order to reach your saving goals i'm not telling you to stop being social altogether but i do encourage you to monitor your social activity around your spending and especially if you are working towards a saving goal that is urgent if that is getting in the way of that then you have to reflect on on what your priorities are essentially and just learn how to say no a couple times just you don't have to say no every time just a few times
at last you're gonna try the five dollar trick
the five dollar trick:
or five dollar challenge is fairly simple anytime you come across a five dollar bill you're gonna put it away and then you're gonna see how much money that turns out to be a year i used to do this when i was younger and i went out partying and actually i never waited a whole year usually i will take my money out of the jar every couple of months and then that just paid for another night out it is so incredible how we can underestimate how money adds up right i think that is the the main point of this challenge is that you might think of five dollars as something that is insignificant that cannot really help you out in any uh you know impactful way right now but over a period of time this could be a new computer this could be even a vacation the possibilities are actually endless when you think about how money can compound over time