5 Easy Steps to Save Money
In today’s world we are all struggling a little to pay our bills, buy groceries, take care of necessary home repairs or reward ourselves at all with our hard-earned money. We need to learn to save money, because you never know when you might have an emergency, like fixing your car, or replacing an appliance in your home. Maybe your dream is to own a small business and you need to save for registering an LLC and credit card processing services. It is important to have at least a small savings saved up for emergency spending. Some people struggle to save money, but anyone can really do it. It is definitely easier said than done, but if you really put your goals in order you can manage to put some money aside for those shoes in the store window, those golf clubs you have been wanting or maybe just an emergency fund.
First rule to saving money is to see how much you are making and budget that with what you are spending. Write down or use an excel spreadsheet to see how much you are making vs how much you spend. Write down the amount you make and add up all your current bills. This will allow you to see how much money you have left over after you pay all your bills for the month, with this you can now learn to budget and see if you can afford to do what you want to do. After you set a budget, truly follow this budget.
5. Set a goal – The first step to saving money after you set your budget is to set a goal. Set a realistic goal of how much you want to save that month. This will allow you to see if it is possible to save the amount you want. If you are trying to save more than what you make and what you pay your bills with, then this is not a realistic goal. Start small and work your way up.
4. Pay off your Debt – Once you have established how much you can put aside in your savings along with paying your bills each month, try to get rid of your debt. Pay off your highest interest credit card first and work your way down. Start by paying the minimum payments on all your credit cards and pay the maximum that you can on the highest interest credit card, once you start paying you will see your debt soon diminishing. Paying off your debt will allow you to put more into your savings and maybe even splurge a little on yourself here and there.
3. Take your lunch to work – If you cannot afford to eat out for lunch every day, then don’t, take your lunch with you, you can easily save $50.00 a week by taking your own lunch to work. If you start by taking your lunch to work you can easily put the money you would spend eating out every day and put it into your savings, you can have at least $200 saved at the end of the month.
2. Limit your Shopping & Special Services expenses – We all like shopping, and sometimes we see something we like for a good price, and we think we are saving by getting it on sale, but if you are trying to save money, put the item back. Also, a weekly massage, manicure and pedicure can cost a lot more than you realize (think home manicures and a massage from your partner or a friend, instead.) First see if you can afford the item, if you can put the amount you would normally purchase the item for into your savings. This helps you add to your savings and when you reach your goal for your savings account, then you can go buy that item you want. Plus, service industry processing costs the producer a lot of money and often they pass on that cost to you.
1. Don’t STOP saving – It may be hard at first to save money and you may get discouraged and overwhelmed by bills and wanting to go out and spend money, but once your debt is free and you are managing your money better, then you will see that it is okay to buy what you want ever so often. It is such a great feeling to know that you have control over what you make and what you spend. Stay focused and save money.
It is not going to be easy at first, but once you get your balance on how to save money, you will see how much less stress you will feel knowing you have a savings account with money it.
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