When you learn how to save money, you’re not just putting aside a chunk of your income, you’re developing a long-term financial mindset that will allow you to lead an enviable lifestyle.
In order not to make this introduction too long, in this article we are going to explain ten steps for you to start saving money quickly, stop spending uselessly, learn how to manage your money, and consequently improve your personal finances.
Why you haven’t started saving money:
Before explaining the steps that will help you save money, let’s start by analyzing what those behaviors are that prevent us from saving in the first place.
As we explained in the Rich Mind ebook, the money you have in your bank account is nothing more than the result of the knowledge you have and the decisions you have made regarding your finances.
So if you do not have money to save, you are doing something wrong with your personal finances that prevents you from achieving it. Below we will list the five mistakes that prevent you from learning how to save money.
Mistaking your savings for an emergency fund:
There are three different concepts: savings to invest, an emergency fund, and a fund to spend. Most people think that these three funds have the same purpose. Something wrong.
The money you save should be invested, not used on unnecessary expenses at the end of the year or to cover family emergencies. For these expenses, you must have other funds.
Allow you to spend your money before saving it
If you have money available in your account, you may be able to find ways to spend it. To avoid this you can automate your savings or have a separate bank account that you do not have available on weekends.
In this way, if you automate savings, the money you have in your account will be available for your expenses and lifestyle.
However, what is the reality? The mistake is that you first spend and then save when the process should be the other way around.
Not taking advantage of technology to control your expenses:
Just as there are applications to earn money, there are also some apps that allow you to keep track of your finances, they tell you in which category you spend your money, among other valuable information.
Even some, like Mint, Money Control, and Pocket Money, allow you to link your credit card, in this way the reports are created automatically.
Not having goals to save money:
If you don’t have a financial goal, there’s no point in wanting to learn how to save money. To fix this, set a deadline and an amount you want to achieve by that day. This will motivate you to achieve it.
Saving without paying your debts:
Saving debts does not make sense. It is preferable that you first learn how to get out of debt, avoiding paying high interest and prolonged installments over time.
When you save without paying debts, you have to take the interest generated by your savings to pay the interest on your loans. Something that doesn’t make sense.
How to save money in a short time, keys and tricks to achieve it easily:
Once we have made clear those mistakes that are made and that prevent us from saving money, now let’s review the keys that will facilitate the process, which will allow you to save a high percentage of your income, which will translate into better personal finances.
1. Buy wholesale what you use frequently
Taking account of how long the products you consume the most last and buy in bulk, it is quite likely that you can get a cheaper price.
If you think that 12 units or more are too much for you, you can agree with family and friends to buy these items, so that everyone can cover the need to have them paying much less, since the payment will be made by everyone in equal parts…
In the case of fruits and vegetables, make sure you buy what you need. Not only will they be fresher, but you’ll save money by not throwing them away every time they go bad in the fridge.
Saving money is about being willing to postpone an unnecessary expense that does not add up to your life, to invest it in your future.
2. Reduce restaurant meals
This implies that you learn to plan and cook your own food at home. To start, you can check what you have in your fridge, what is good, what you can use, and what products have expired.
When buying food in supermarkets, consider the following tips:
- Buy the supermarket brand, if you like the taste of the brand and find it of quality, you can save money.
- Opt for non-canned foods, fresh produce and grains are usually cheaper and healthier than canned foods.
- Use coupons, these have discounts depending on the day of purchase and the type of product. There you can save some money.
- Although it sounds curious, do not go to the supermarket when you are hungry or have not eaten, since anxiety could lead you to make unnecessary purchases.
Additionally, if you want to learn how to save money and live a minimalist lifestyle, start by stopping buying coffee on the street, which is expensive, and stop buying bottled water.
Buy a thermos and fill it with tap water, additionally buy a good quality coffee and prepare it at home.
3. Check your household utility bills
The problem is not the amount you pay for utility bills, but that you don’t use these services. For example, if you rarely watch TV, cancel this service and just pay for Netflix.
Another thing you could do is ask your Internet, telephone, and cell phone providers if they have better offers or discounts, you will most likely get a discount.
Finally, check what subscriptions you have (magazines, newspapers, monthly plans) and ask yourself if you are consuming this content. If not, cancel these plans and use this resource for other things.
4. Consciously use appliances in your home
Learning how to save money in this category is relatively simple, and even more so when you develop good habits that make the process easier. For example, you can start by turning off the air conditioning in your house, so you will stop paying such expensive energy bills.
It’s all about habits and routines that make it easy for you to save money. Another change you can make is to stop doing laundry several times a week and start accumulating loads of laundry. This way you will save water, soap, energy, and even time.
On the other hand, as far as possible, do not use the dryer, which usually damages clothes and is the enemy of your pocket with those gas and electricity bills.
5. Think of your money in terms of time
Surely in this way, it will be much easier for you to save money; For example, if you earn $10 an hour, every time you buy a $5 coffee, this is equivalent to 30 minutes of work in your life.
This applies to any type of financial decision you make, every time you go to spend money think about the time it took you to get it. Surely you will be much more aware when making a purchase.
6. Make smart purchases
Learning how to save money doesn’t mean you stop buying things you need or really enjoy. Rather, it is about every penny of the money you spend being well spent or used. Here are some tips for making smart purchases:
Quality purchases:
To make smart purchases, the first thing you should do is buy quality products. Many people think they are “saving money” by buying cheap stuff when in the long run, they end up spending more than twice as much replacing what quickly got damaged.
Spending $30 every three months on a pair of shoes could be replaced by about $60 once a year.
Compare prices:
The second thing is to make sure that you are making a good purchase, this means that before buying something you compare the prices you are getting with other sources. You can earn money online, or save it if you find the same product, or a good quality used one on the web.
Impact of your purchase:
Before you buy something, ask yourself what impact that product or service will have on your life. You will certainly control and terminate your impulse.
Another way to control yourself is when you go to make a purchase that has a discount, is to ask yourself if you would buy it if it did not have a discount. If the answer is no, you probably don’t need it.
Finally, you will be able to establish rules so that learning how to save money becomes automatic; You can decide that to spend $50 you will have to wait at least two days, or change the frequency of certain expenses, like the coffee you buy every morning, make it a weekly habit.
Invest your money, where you invest your time:
This is a very good way to make smart purchases since you will be investing your money in products, services, and experiences that you know you will use.
For example, if you have healthy habits like running, you can invest in good running shoes; If you enjoy your time in the gym, buy a good outfit to go there.
This type of thinking pushes away the superficial things that do not add value to your life.
7. Learn to use your credit cards
As explained in the Zero Debt ebook, credit cards can be a very powerful and useful tool if you know how to handle them well.
However, when we use them indiscriminately and without good planning and knowledge, they impede your quest to save money.
To begin with, if you have several credit cards, you will be incurring higher financial expenses, as well as your debt capacity, something negative if later you are thinking of saving to buy your first home or any other important investment.
So, to put them to good use, here are a series of recommendations:
Know the financial cost:
Using credit and debit cards have a cost. These range from withdrawing money at an ATM, to the interest rates they charge you for the use of a credit card.
So every time you decide to pay for a 36-month purchase with your credit card, you will be paying almost twice as much for the same product, depending on the rates in your country.
Identify important dates:
Credit cards have two important dates: the cut-off date and the payment deadline.
The first date consists of the day of the month where expenses are cut; For example, if your date is the 15th, all the purchases you make up to that day will arrive on your next statement. Those purchases you make from the 16th onwards, will not arrive in the extract of the next one, but the one that follows later.
The second date is the maximum day of the month you have to pay. If you leave your card payment for the last day, you may let it pay and end up paying interest in arrears, which are usually the highest in the market.
Responsible use of these plastics:
Putting your credit cards to good use implies that you activate alerts for your purchases with these plastics. In this way, you will be safer and avoid fraud, as well as have greater control over your expenses.
Finally, avoid paying small sums of money with your credit card. It happens that you tend to lose track of money and it seems to you that each purchase is insignificant, the problem is that there are hundreds of them.
8. Intelligent management of your transport expenses
Knowing how to save money is a matter of using your resources properly, as well as taking care of those assets you have.
One of the most profitable businesses you can do in your life is to use a bicycle to go to work. Not only will you save money by avoiding the car or public transportation, but your physical health will thank you.
Now, if you frequently use a car or motorcycle, here are some practical tips that will save you money in the long run:
- It is proven that putting gas in your car at night, and not in the morning, makes it perform better. When you tank during the day, gasoline tends to evaporate in the heat.
- When you don’t pay attention to the witnesses on your car; such as tires with insufficient air, engine, or filter failure, this causes gas consumption to increase.
- If you have a new car, it’s okay to take your car to the dealer so you don’t lose the warranty. However, ask yourself if that oil change, or minor changes, require taking your car to these places where everything is more expensive.
9. Create a personal budget
If you want to learn how to save money, you must have control and knowledge of your expenses, and for this, there is no better tool than having a personal budget.
Within this you can have the percentage of your income that you are going to save, you can monitor the monthly expenses, and the categories, and even use applications that facilitate the process.
Remember that what is not measured does not improve. So to start saving money, you must first know what you are spending your money on each month.
Within a budget, you must also include income, so that you know how much you earn each month depending on your sources of income, and if necessary, identify the need to increase your income.
10. Practical tricks to save money easily
To finish this guide to learn how to save money, we will share with you a series of tricks or simple practices, that will help you in your quest to improve your personal finances.
Money Rounding Down Trick:
This trick consists of rounding up to zero the money that you do not spend, that you have in your pocket, and on your cards.
For example, imagine you have $1,532 in your bank account and $235 in cash (see image). The trick is to round both numbers down to the nearest zero and save this difference.
The more figures you are willing to round off, the more money you will save. You can start with a single figure and save $5 and work your way up to double and triple figures.
The good thing about this nifty trick is that it will let you know how much money you have in your accounts since they are round numbers.
Another use that you can give to this trick is that every 15 days, or every month, depending on the way you receive your income or salary, you save the rest that you have in your bank account and cash.
For example, if you have $75 in your accounts one day before you get paid, deposit the remainder in your savings account. In this way, you will be more applied to the way you spend, since you will not have that extra cushion the following month.
Create an exclusive savings account:
When you mix the money you are saving with the money you use in your day-to-day life, it is very easy for you to end up spending it. So that this does not happen, create an exclusive savings account, you can even create an investment account so that these savings generate interest.
Every time you deposit money in this account, even if it is minimal, you will be investing in your future, so don’t wait to invest your money, but invest and then wait.
Start saving money today:
If you are interested in achieving financial independence, you must be very clear that learning how to save money is the first step and one of the most important.
We hope that with these steps and tricks you will not only start saving but also change your mindset about your personal finances. Saving depends on your habits, so check how you live your days and avoid those situations or moments when you know you will spend unnecessary money.
Remember that it is not about stopping living, but about being clear about your priorities and acting based on them.
