“I don’t conform to the cliché meaning of saving anymore”- Beatrice w.
Many people would define savings as the amount of money they have left after they pay their bills and subtract their consumer spending, but I think that’s where most people go wrong. You should plan for how much you’ll save otherwise you end up not saving it. From my experience of working for many years, I have realized that saving is not a walk in the park. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. You just have to figure out what works for you early enough in your career or business. I understand
that most people aren’t lucky enough to be financially informed so I’ll share some of my tips on savings from my experiences. Please note that I was able to do it by learning from other people, reading books and through trial and error so you can customize them to suit your circumstances.
- Figure out your spending habits early.
Self realization is the greatest achievement to your savings journey. This will help you avoid a lot of financial distress that is caused by spending your money unwisely. Personally I used to save through the “cliché way” of putting money aside for a while but then I would spend all the money when I got a “need”. I realized that this wasn’t working for me. After figuring out my financial indiscipline, I decided to create an account where I would not access the money at all and this helped me a lot. Accepting a problem early enough helps to save you from a whole bunch of problems in the future. You should be very honest with yourself. - Budget for savings
A lot of people save what is left after they deduct their personal expenses. I think that as you are budgeting for your monthly expenses, you should budget for how much you should save. Creating a reason to save; like saving to buy something or to make an investment and budgeting for it monthly is a hack that helped me a lot. If you have poor financial discipline, get creative ways of committing your money that will help you make better financial decisions. You will be constantly broke and not have surplus cash that you could spend on random things that don’t really matter but it will be for a good cause. - Keep your expenses low
The problem with most people is that they want to live large without considering that anything could happen to your source of income. I think 2020 was the year that taught most of us that. Be frugal in your
expenses so that you have more extra cash. For instance you can use public transport instead of using cabs, carry home packed lunch instead of getting takeout, don’t go out to party every weekend with your friends and most of all find a place where you pay