No matter where you are on your financial journey you need to know it is possible to turn your financial life around. Making small changes in your life can fatten your savings and help you budget better. Follow these tips to save more money.
- Change One Habit and Save
- Using a Budget is Beneficial
- Use a Savings Goal Calculator
- Reduce Your Bank Fees
- Be Conscious About Money
Change One Habit And Save
Small changes can make a real impact on your bank balance and that’s exciting for all of us. Change one thing you do regularly and you could save money. Some examples are:
- Cut down on coffee and alcohol – it will save you money and might even save your life
- Stop collecting and start selling
- Make your lunch at home
- Write a list before you go shopping and don’t shop hungry
- Have a communal dinner – dine at home and ask friends to bring a plate to share
- Turn off the lights
- Do price comparisons to find your desired item cheaper
- Borrow books and DVDs from the library
- Set a limit for presents and get handy and make your own
- Cancel unused memberships – gym, subscriptions, holiday clubs
- Ring around about your insurances, power and water bills – ideally you should do this annually
- Use coupons for cheap fuel and grocery items
- Use a credit card which gives you points
- Register on Living Social, Groupon, Scoop On or All The Deals, where they are all in one place
Using a Budget is Beneficial
A budget is a very important tool to use on your journey to financial security as it is one of the most basic and effective tools for managing your money.
Yet, most people avoid doing it because it is additional work, much like cutting your lawn or fixing the roof. Budgeting also connotes that you have to give up and stop yourself from enjoying stuff.
What budgeting actually does is clearly show you how you allocate your money and present you the choices on what stuff to enjoy – based on your financial limitations.
Although budgeting is indeed more work, it pays off with many life-enhancing benefits. Read our Top 10 Budgeting Hacks Here.
Budgeting will save you the grief of overspending and being too much in debt. It doesn’t stop you from enjoying stuff, it simply ensures that you enjoy stuff when you want it.
Finding a good budget is no small task, so we’ve included the 14 Best Budget Apps for 2017 which can be used for iPhone and Android Here.
“He who gathers money little by little makes it grow.”
Savings Goals Calculator
Use a savings goals calculator to help determine how much to save and how long to save for to achieve a financial goal. Perhaps you want to save for a new car, a deposit on a house, a longed-for holiday or for something as simple as a new TV.
Be savvy and use a savings goals calculator which will tell you how much you will need to save each month in order to achieve your goal. It will also tell you how long it might take you to save.
Enter your savings goal, how much money you’re starting with, the interest rate, savings frequency and how long you’d like to reach your goal. For simplicity, it makes sense for your savings frequency to be the same as your salary (or other income) pay cycle.
The calculator will then show you how much you need to save each period to reach your goal.
Get started now.
Reduce Your Bank Fees
With the banks earning billions of dollars every year in profit it’s always a good idea to shop around. Leading finance comparison sites such as infochoice.com.au can help consumers make better informed decisions around finding financial products that are better suited to their needs.
Look for accounts with no monthly or transactional fees, check if you want to make additional payments on a loan that there’ll be no fees to do so and check for banking packages that’ll save you money on account fees or will reward you with additional interest on the money you save.
Be Conscious About Money
Around 3 billion of the world’s population live on less than $2.50 per day, and 80% of the world’s population lives on less than $10 per day.
Many of us go through life with a poor money consciousness. We think about the lack of money more than we think about the abundance of money. We have been brought up to believe certain things about money which in turn holds us back from receiving more money in our lives.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the terms ‘The rich get richer and the poor get poorer’, ‘Another day, another dollar’, Money is the root of all evil’, ‘You must work hard for money’ blah blah blah.
These types of beliefs have been ingrained in to our subconscious minds over time and actually prevent us from having the money we deserve in life. Simply expand your money consciousness which will then change your beliefs about money which will in turn bring more of it in to your life. Yay!
Learn more in our E-book | Master Your Money Mindset.