Do You Have a Strategy to Save Money
It is great to find a sale or cut credit card interest rates. But I find that real long term frugal people have some strategies to help them save money every day, every week, or every month. In other words, if you want to live well on a budget, it really helps to have a starting place, a plan, and a goal. That does not mean you must live like a monk either, but just have a way to spend less on your needs, and yes, on your luxuries.
Automatic Savings – Even if you don’t have an automatic savings plan at work, many banks will let you set one up. You can transfer a set amount from your checking account into your savings or money market account every month.
Another service, like Sharebuilder, sets up an automatic transfer into whatever investment or savings vehicle you choose every month. You can simply build cash in their savings account, or you can invest in stocks or mutual funds. And you have the flexibility to change your investment amounts and plans at any time.
We find that an automatic savings plan is much more reliable than thinking that we will move money to our savings account when we get around to it! If you can save $25 – $50, you can begin. Of course, it would be great if you could set aside more than that.
Find Money to Save!
I know what many of you are thinking. By the time you pay bills, buy food, and hand out cash to the kids, you don’t have anything left. I feel that way myself sometimes. I understand that while it is great to stay on top of bills, it is also important to enjoy the spice of life with a night our, a first run movie at a theatre, or a trip somewhere. Nobody here is telling you to cut all of that out of your lives.
Sell Something – I know one very industrious family who comes up with something to sell every month. This family also has the cleanest closets in the neighborhood, so that may be a side benefit. They use online auctions, like EBay, garage sales, and even pawn shops. Outgrown books, games and movies, gently used clothes, appliances, and everything else that they no longer use seems to have a market. They say it was hard to get started, but once they had set their goal, it began to get easier.
They do not always expect to get a lot of money for their old tvs, outgrown rain coats, or bird cages (poor Tweety), but it helps them come up with some cash that goes right to their emergency cash fund. And having that fund to use when they need to repair their car, visit the dentist, or buy a prom dress saves them money in the long run because it reduces their reliance on credit.
Organize Something – Do you know that when I cleaned out my pantry, I found 3 bottles of olive oil, six boxes of pasta, and 14 cans of tomato soup? Somehow I kept buying the soup because one kids favored it, but had apparently stopped eating it after school started and he ate school lunches. Well, 12 of those soup cans went to the donation box, and I knew to strike some of those items off of my grocery reminder next week. I had been buying some of the same things out of habit, and had forgotten I already had them because they got pushed to the back of the closet.
So here’s my tip from this. One week, only buy things that spoil in the grocery store. You will probably need to get milk and bread. For that week, try to prepare meals out of what you have and see how far you get. If you want to use one of the three jars of spaghetti sauce (yes, I had 3), and you need ground meat, then just run to the store for that.
Frequent shopping trips, for just one or two items you actually want, can save you money. You just have to force yourself not to buy something else that draws your attention, and we all know that grocery stores are cleverly laid out to do just that. Of course, if the store is far away, and the trip will consume a lot of gasoline, this may not be great advice.
My own solution to that problem is to send my daughter on her bike. She likes to get some exercise every day, and she is much less likely to depart from the list than I am. Even if I tip her with an extra $5 to buy herself a magazine, some nail polish in a color that never occurs in nature, or some other treat, she still spends less than I would have with my debit card and impulsive spending habit!
Do You Have Strategies to Save Money?
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Leave the debit card at home.
I got in the habit of swiping my card for everything, and I have to tell you that it ends up costing me more in the long run. If I use cash or write a check (which I am better at recording), I am much less inclined to overspend.