Today I’m going to share a post with you with some ideas for how to save money when you think you can’t afford to…
I know it’s not always easy to save, especially if you don’t have much money spare anyway so I wanted to give you a few ideas on how to save when you think you can’t afford to…
Make it easy
If you can, set up a second bank account and add the details to your online banking so you can quickly and easily transfer any money across to your savings account. The easier it is, the more likely you are to transfer money into it. This is my biggest suggestion if someone asks me how to save because I know from personal experience that the more effort I have to put in, the less likely I am to actually save.
Save your small change!
We have our homemade savings jar on the windowsill in the kitchen that we all add in our small change – usually 20p coins and anything under that but we do sometimes pop in the odd 50p or £1.
You can bag it up and take it to your bank to pay directly into your account or if you prefer, just use the Coinstar machines in your local supermarket – all of ours have one. They charge something like 8p in the pound and give you cash or shopping vouchers. I would just use the amount against your shopping and then transfer that amount into your savings account.
Skim your bank account.
I’ve written about how to skim your bank account here but basically, it’s just transferring the odd pennies amount from your bank account into your savings account. The idea is that you won’t miss the odd pence and if you do it often enough then it will quickly build up.
Set yourself weekly/monthly budgets
If your monthly budget allows £50 for your weekly shop then try your hardest to spend less than that and save the difference. If you have a super frugal week and don’t spend too much then add everything you save into your savings account.
Make some extra money to save
There are so many ways that you can make some extra money in this post here but a few I wanted to highlight are to have a declutter and sell some of your unwanted things on selling sites like your local Facebook selling page or doing surveys (I’ve got a post planned for next week to share some of my favourite survey sites) or even finding something you’re good at (ironing, painting, babysitting, baking etc) and selling your services.
Move money out automatically on payday
There are two ways you can do this – you can either move a set amount out of your account on payday and hope you won’t notice it’s gone or you can transfer any money left in your bank the night before payday. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small amount at this point, it’s the fact you’re doing it that counts. 😉
Make it visual
I love to be able to see my savings grow in a visual way so I’ve made a little tracker in my notebook. My initial target is £1000 so I’ve made a little 10 x 10 grid with each square representing £10. Every time I save £10, I’ll colour in a square.
I’d love to know if you plan to start saving this year…
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