How to Save More (Even if You Don’t Know How To!)

W anting to save is nothing to shy away from. The value of personal savings in the US from 1960 to 2020 is a whopping $2.3 trillion! If you don’t know how to save more, you have come to the right place. Read on to find out ways to save your money, and ensure financial security down the line.

1. Start Budgeting

The most important part of saving money is knowing exactly where to spend how much money to spend, because otherwise you’ll likely be overspending on things such as food and fashion.

Make a budget for yourself by writing down your priorities and comparing them with how much you earn. Calculate what you can cut back costs on. Check your bills, credit card statements, receipts, and bank statements, and make sure your expenditure is less than what you earn in a month.

Try to update your budget regularly depending on how your life changes, be it having a child, or losing a job, or getting a promotion. Factor in events such as your wedding if you plan to get married.

2. Track How Much You Spend

If you know where your money is going, you will likely be vigilant before spending it. It’s easy to spend $50 on a fancy dinner and then forget about it, but if you are forced to be held accountable for that $50 and whether it is necessary, you will likely change your mind about spending it.

Use an app on your phone to track how much you spend. Most apps nowadays have a feature to scan your receipts, so you don’t have to manually enter the amounts you’re spending. Use the analytics from your app to see if you’re spending too much unnecessary money on items like clothes, which you can cut back costs on.

3. Do Not Let Interest Accumulate

Try to not take loans at all, but if you use a credit card or have a debt you need to pay off, make sure you are on time for all of the payments so you do not fall prey to sky high interest rates and late payment fees. This way you are saving money and also improving your credit score, which in turn will save you more money when you are buying a house or so.

4. Plan Your Meals

This works miraculously in multiple different ways. First, it is important to know what meal preparation entails. Write down your menu for the week, and what groceries you’d need for these meals. Then, on a visit to the supermarket, buy only the groceries you made a list for. This will help you not make random visits in the middle of the week, which are likely to result in overspending on things you don’t need, and overbuying perishable items that will likely go bad before use.

Secondly, knowing what you’ll have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner avoids ordering takeout, and reduces the unnecessary strain on your wallet from the restaurant bills, and the gas it takes to get to the restaurant.

5. Open a Savings Account

Money does not grow on trees, but it does grow in a savings account. Not only are these accounts restrictive of your transactions, but they also have good returns and a higher interest rate than the average current account.

A good way of knowing how much to put in your savings account is to just round off any money in your current account. If you have $203.04 in your current account, transfer $3.04 to your savings account. You will likely not miss these small amounts, and over time they will accumulate into considerable money that you can use to pay off your debts if you have any.

6. Cancel Subscriptions You Don’t Use

You likely have multiple online streaming service subscriptions, a gym membership, a club membership, and maybe even some online magazine subscriptions that you do not use as frequently as you should to get the best bang for the buck.

It’s a good idea to cancel all automatic payments on your subscriptions and manually decide each month if you want to continue using the service, and if it is really any good at all. However, if you do want to keep a subscription, say for example Netflix, think about sharing a subscription with your friends or your family members to cut back on some of the costs.

Frugality goes a long way in financial security in the future, but don’t deprive yourself of all happiness. Just make sure to follow these tips and know how to save more.