The Secret to Saving Money Every Month
As much as people try to avoid money ruling their life, everyone needs it to survive. You may not necessarily be able to buy happiness, but having a safety net and some financial cushion can ease many stressors and worries. Since the economic crisis that hit in 2008, many people have found that they need to buckle down and save everything they can when the opportunity is there to do so. Learning how to save money even when it is tight will definitely put you ahead of the game.
Budget
Creating a budget not only helps people stay focused on what bills need to be paid and when, it lays everything out on the table in black and white. You simply write down the amount of income coming into the household and write down every payment that needs to go out monthly. People tend to forget things like groceries and gas make sure you write down everything. If you have to go as far as carrying a notebook around with you for a solid month to start logging and tracking your spending habits, do it. As annoying, as it may seem now, you will be thankful in the end.
Pay Off Debt
As difficult as this task may sound, this is what is ruining your credit and keeping you in a financial bind. The main concern with debt is that there is always a certain amount of interest tacked onto the amount you owe - if you consistently make minimum payments or avoid the payments all the time, you are just accruing more debt. One thing you may want to consider is a debt consolidation loan. Not only will it make payments easier, the interest accruing on many accounts will go away as long as you maintain your one payment.
Save Your Change
As childish as it may seem to some, saving change adds up. Whether you decide to leave your change untouched or use it for laundry is completely up to you, but think about every time you use cash. Better yet, try to use cash as much as possible. The more cash you use, the less debt you are accruing and the more change you are putting in your savings. Rarely are their items that cost exact dollar amounts, think about every purchase you make throughout the day, at the end of it all you may have a descent amount of change in your pocket.
Learn to Live Without
Having access to items such as cable and cell phones is somewhat of a double-edged sword. As nice as it is to have these things many people have grown accustomed to living a certain way and take them for granted. There are many people across the globe that are making a living without these items and they are not spending exorbitant amounts of money on monthly bills either. Ask yourself if you really need to have cable television. How many hours are you home a week? How often is television watched? It really is a luxury and not a necessity, some cable bills run close to $130 dollars a month! That money could go straight into a savings account. Same goes for cellular phones, having more than one vehicle and so forth.
Becoming more conscious about your money spending habits will definitely open your eyes and make you more aware about how to start saving. There are always ways to cut back on expenses like not going out to eat as often and actually using the coupons for your local grocery store. Make yourself a budget and learn to stick to it! Each little move you make may not seem like much at the time, but it all adds up at the end of each and every month. One of the best secrets to saving money is by doing little bits at a time and letting the totals add up.
