Do you ever feel as though no matter how hard you try, it’s almost impossible to save money? You start with great intentions and try to spend less, but something always comes up. Life happens. The boiler breaks down, your child grows out of their school shoes, or the car needs to be serviced. Just like that, your saving money plans go down the drain.
You don’t need everything to line up perfectly before you can save money. If you wait for the right time to start saving, it’s never going to happen. The best time to start saving or investing is now. Luckily, there are lots of easy ways to save money and give yourself a little bit more breathing room in your budget. Here are some simple saving tips to help you manage your spending and save more money in no time.
Say Goodbye To Your Debt
Monthly payments on your debt are some of the biggest sucks on your money every month. Debt robs you of your income. It’s time to get rid of that debt. The fastest way to pay down debt is the debt snowball method. This is where you pay off your debts in order of smallest to largest. The sounds intense, but it’s more about the behaviour change than numbers. Once you have freed up more of your income, you can finally use it to make progress towards your saving goals.
Cancel Automatic Subscriptions and Memberships
You’re probably paying for a lot of different subscriptions, like your gym, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and subscription boxes. Cancel any of those subscriptions that you don’t use on a regular basis. Make sure you turn off the auto-renew function on any of these options too, so you don’t get caught out. If you cancel something and decide that you can’t go without it, you can just subscribe again, if it fits into your new budget.
For the subscriptions that you do want to keep, see if you could share memberships with friends or family to split the costs. A lot of streaming services, like Netflix, will let you watch your favorite shows from two or more screens. Everyone can use the account and save some money.
Buy Generic
One of the easiest ways to save money is to give up name brands. In most cases, the only thing that’s better about brand-name products is the marketing. Generic brands of medicine, essential food items, cleaning products, and paper products cost a lot less than the marked-up brands, and they work just as well too.
Save Money Automatically
Did you know that you can save money without having to think about it? You can set up your bank account to automatically transfer some of your funds from your main account into your savings account every month, without you having to do anything. If that sounds a bit scary, you can set up a direct deposit to automatically transfer some of your paychecks into your savings account. You’ll never notice the money you didn’t have in the first place.