Did you know that the average American only saves about 3% of their income? It's important to enjoy memorable experiences and make the most of life; however, it is just as important to work on saving your money. Your future self will be grateful.
1. Buy a Whiteboard.
My husband works in the finance industry, so this was his idea. What a brilliant idea it was. We calculated what we spend vs. what we bring in every month and created a budget with different categories. We gave ourselves a miscellaneous spending category that we use for personal use, fun actives, if we go over our groceries category, etc.
Every week we track on this whiteboard how much of that allowance we've given ourselves to we can visually see it and keep ourselves from spending too much. The amount we have allotted for ourselves allows us to have left-over for our savings account.
Other categories on our board: Gifts, gas, groceries, giving. All other categories are set mostly payments, so no need to add them to the board.
2. Learn to cook.
I have said this before in other posts because doing so has saved me so much money. Cook most of your meals. You will eat healthier and save a ton.
3. Invest.
Okay, don't get overwhelmed! You probably saw that word and wanted to skip this one, right? It's not as hard as you think. Go into a branch and talk to someone, or just get on the phone. Search online for "investment companies" and call one of them up. Maybe watch some Youtube videos on investing so you can better understand the concept of investing. There is a lot to learn, but the company you choose to invest with can help you. They can manage your accounts for as little as 1% of your assets.
You should be seeing returns from 6 - 10% if you do it right. What returns are you currently seeing in your standard savings account? I bet it's under 2%... Learn about this. I know some folks who never really thought about saving for retirement, and as they approach that age where they're not able to do as much as they used to, they're stressing about what they can do. If you don't save for your retirement, who will? Kind of a scary thought, huh? Start now!
4. Get Out of Debt!
When I was engaged, my husband's cousin and his wife gave us a book as a gift. It was called Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. We read the book shortly after my husband began his career in finance, so we were still pretty green.
That book was a major eye-opener. We had 2 car payments and student loan debt which took away big portions of our monthly income. Since reading that book, we made some big sacrifices like turning down family vacations and adventures, to living with family members while paying of our debt.
We just paid off my husband's car completely (this was right after paying for a wedding and honeymoon, mostly on our own!). Now we have that extra money to put toward my car every month and will quickly get that out of the way. Society leads you to believe that everyone has debt and it's the normal thing to do. Be different. Open up your budget and free yourself from that debt. It takes a lot of hard work, but it's so worth it.
5. Speaking of Debt, Watch This Video:
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