Top 5 Ways to Save Money

No matter who you are or what your financial situation is, everyone wants to save money. But figuring out how to save can be tricky. There are countless avenues you can take to save portions of your income each month. With so many options, what’s the right game plan for you? To give you peace of mind, we’ve compiled a short list of five sensible ways to save your money that can each be kicked into action from the living room couch.

Create “Saving Goals”

Start your foray into saving money by creating “saving goals,” or desired purchases you want to make at some point in your life. To begin, identify what it is you want to save for. Maybe it’s a vacation to the Bahamas or your dream home. Either way, write down what you want, how much it will cost, and all the ancillary costs attached to your goal. Don’t forget to factor in the price of the airplane ticket or monthly mortgage payments you’ll need to make. If you want to start saving, having a prize at the end of the tunnel might be the motivation you need to finally put aside a hefty chunk of change.

Map Your Largest Expenses

It might benefit you to map the larger expenses you plan on making in the future; that way, you’ll know exactly how much to save and when you’ll need those funds by. Say you want to purchase a new car in three years’ time. But by the end of this year, you want to help pay for your child’s wedding. Locking in these big purchases and when you need to make them will help you plan how much money you should put away each month.

Track Your Money

Do you ever feel like your money is being pulled in a million different directions? Before you know it, you don’t have much left to save from your last paycheck. If this is the case for you, try tracking where your money is going each week. The results might surprise you.

Perhaps you’re still paying for a streaming service subscription you only wanted to test out a few months ago. Or maybe you’re spending more than you would like to on fast food each week. Whatever the case is, pay closer attention to the flow of your finances to cut out any unnecessary expenses and redirect the money to your savings.

Sell, Sell, Sell

Have any unnecessary or unwanted items lying around your home? Why not put them up for sale on an online marketplace to see if you can turn a profit to be put toward your savings? That old wooden dresser you used to use that’s clogging up space in your garage is the perfect candidate for auctioning off to interested buyers. Ideally, you’ll receive interest from someone local, and you two can meet up somewhere in public that’s close, well-lit, and has plenty of people around to complete the transaction.

Save Automatically

These days, you don’t even have to manually transfer money from your checking account to your savings. Most banks offer a feature to assign a fixed amount from your paycheck to go directly into your savings with no additional action required. If saving automatically is new to you, it might be best to start small. Pick a low dollar amount to extract from your paycheck at first, as choosing a number value too high could unexpectedly disrupt your usual economic routine until the next time you get paid.

We hope these ideas help you get started saving a little more each month!