I just talked to a friend who was complaining that she has to come up with $1000 every October and she has nothing saved up. I asked her if she could save $19.25 on a weekly basis. She said she could, if she cut out her morning coffee and took her own to work, and if she also skipped eating lunch out one day a week.
That's a good reminder that we all need, to save small amounts toward big bills. I do it on a monthly basis for bills that are due every 3 or 6 months like the newspaper, house insurance, etc. I divide the yearly totals of each by 12, and put that amount aside every month to save. When the bigger bills finally come, the money is there to transfer back to checking, and if there were a true emergency where we had to have the money, it would still be there.
Now if I could just make myself go make a list of all the household appliances that wear out every 10 years or so, and put THAT money aside. Can't afford to put that much aside in reality, but I can work on one or two. I've found that if the money is in my checking account, it's GONE, but if I don't have it there, I can do without a lot of 'wants' that I would otherwise have thought were 'needs'.
The first thing I do now is look at the fliers for the week and plan my menu around the sales. I give myself one hour a week to do this.
Saving money is an important skill to learn. This is a page about challenging yourself to save.
Saving money is easy! Try some of these tips and you'll see how much difference it makes to the budget. I only shop now once a month and we go without nothing.
This is a page about saving your raise. Saving money can be difficult. One thing that might work for you, if you get a raise, is to bank it, all of it.
Have everyone in the family join in. You must use "survival skills". Make due with what you have on hand. Be creative in being thrifty. You may want to start with two weeks and see how it goes. Make a game of it!
One instant budget breaker is impulse buying. Stores create displays that are so enticing it's hard to resist wandering over to them and buying something that is most definitely not on the shopping list. Spontaneous shopping is seldom a good choice.
I encouraged a friend to start a savings account. She had no savings and had to charge emergencies when they came up. She said she did not have money to start a savings account with and could not afford to add to it if she did.
When visiting a mall, there is one thing that makes me want to spend, spend, spend! That is the sight of another shopper with lots of lovely designer store bags in her arms.
Have everyone in the family put all their quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies into a "bank" on a regular basis. (daily, or weekly).
Some time ago, we needed some cable to connect a computer to the router and it seemed quite expensive in the store. I checked online and finally bought some for about half what the stores wanted for name brand cable.
When shopping, I get the total, write the clerk check and then offer the coupons. The cashier then gives me cashback after deducting the coupons which in turn goes to a saving account for special projects.
I belong to a weekly creative writing class that costs $9 each week for the class. We are now on two weeks break from the class, so that is $18 that I save for that time.
