As soon as you see your first dollar bill you will start enjoying the flavor of money. This does not stop here. Saving money is making money. If you carefully observe the life of millionaire they would have values the time value of money from day 1. You can save today for your better future. It is interesting to know that money is a snowball. It grows with momentum and the amount of momentum depends on your plan. Here are some simple killer tips to save for your future:
1) Start a savings account alongside normal checking account- As opposed to major banks, now banks like allybank, everbank, synchrony bank offer interesting interest rates in savings and checking account. They are FDIC insured upto certain level. Interest is always a free money. Even if you pay all your bills and have very less amount left, you will start making interest until you pay your bills and that is a motivation indeed. I'd recommend banks that are FDIC insured to be 100% sure about the safety of your money plus look for savings account for saving with interest
2) Credit cards offer indirect money - Though having too many credit cards, opening and closing of many bank accounts affects your credit score, one of you in your family either yourself or spouse can avail interesting sign-up offer from banks, credit card companies etc. If you carefully analyse the credit score they talk more on maintaining proper payment history. IF you want to close a credit card to avoid annual fees after the offer expires, do so . Typically closure of latest credit cards will not impact your credit score greatly. Also, if you already own a property and dont plan to buy one in near future what is the reason behind hanging around credit score. Instead focus on making money utilizing sign-up offers
There are ton lots of sign-up offers to choose from - purchase cash back, travel rewards, business card rewards etc. If you plan of travel some cards offer unbelievable sign-on bonus that you cant choose to miss today. Typically they cover 80 to 90% of your ticket cost. Plan properly before travel
3)Annual Passes to save on tickets during travel and recreation - If you are passionate about visiting national parks, purchase annual passes. This will help you save good. Check for deals before making purchase. Note that you opt to choose one-time pass until upto annual national pass depending on your requirement. If the parks are not close by and you have no interest then go for single time passes. This does hold good with aquarium, zoo visits.
Checking deals before visiting them can be beneficial at times. Say if you plan on visiting zoo, they offer movie on a particular day of a week. This will help you save towards family movie cost for that month. Check deals, coupoun offers in their website, plan wisely to save big on your visits
4) Wants should not win over needs - In most cases we splurge money only if we dont have clear understanding of what we want in life. So, to save better first know if this is a want or a need. Lets take a day-to-day life example. Make list of items to purchase in a piece of paper before making grocery purchase. This helps you save money on unnecessary purchase. Also, maintain a notebook with details on monthly grocery, update it if the product is out of inventory. We might end up ahving 20 salt boxes that does come to our notice only upon vacating the house :)
5) Realize the Time value of money - Time is money. Use it in its best possible way. IT can even help you relax yourself, create something interesting that makes you feel better, can help you develop new skills. As such make best use of your time to be really happy. IF you prefer to do exercise use your time to do so. Health is wealth. Realize that the time you spend on exercises does help you save on insurance and medical costs in future
6) Sign-up for email alerts, maintain reward cards, cehck offers before every purchase - This happened to me last week. I have been regular customer of a pizza brand. I wanted to buy pizzas from them and happened to check my mail before making purchase. Unexpectedly I found a coupoun satisfying my need. This helped me save $5 on my purchase. Also, surprisingly I got an offer from discover card online purchase that will allow me to buy pizza for $10 anytime for next 6 months. So, signup and check for offers before making purchase on food, grocery, clothing, auto repair, auto maintenance, pharmacy delas like walgreens balance rewards, CVS pharmacy cards etc
7) Think About Usability Of A Product Before Purchasing - Penny Saved is Penny earned. I went to a Retail Chainer during last week to purchase a new dinner set for forth coming parties. I was very happy to roam around the shop seeing colourful products of variegated brands. They had a rich collection of dinners ets starting from $14 to about $250.
When I checked the number of pieces and type of items almost each dinner set had same number of items and similar kind of items. I still agree that quality is going to be different.
I'm going to use it whenever there is a party organized at my home. We hardly had 6 parties during the last 4 months. Considering the usability as the major factor I chose a dinner set worth $33. My initial budget was $50. I saved $17 in this purchase. So, whatever you save in your purchase is always an add-on. So think about usability of an item and there are chances that you might save good
8) Focus should be towards increasing the income rather than calculating the percentage of savings
Whenever we bring home salary on post-tax, 401K and such contribution basis it becomes necessary to determine what portion of income can be saved. As such many say 50% savings is better to start with. I've a totally different view on savings. Lets consider some simple real-life examples
8.1) Person making salary $3000 per month living in most expensive area. How much can he save? Let say average rent is $1000, expenses per month on groceries, utilities etc come around $500, car maintenance, repari (or) public transit costs him $100 all he can save is 40 to 50% of his salary
8.2) Now the same person makes $5000 instead of $3000 - This automatically increments his savings by 20% extra
Does that mean that this person has improved his spending habit in due course? Hence, whenever we talk of saving our income we need to calculate the amount that we earn. If we are capable of saving money that can take care of 15 more days that would be extermely ideal in case of very low income.
1) Start a savings account alongside normal checking account- As opposed to major banks, now banks like allybank, everbank, synchrony bank offer interesting interest rates in savings and checking account. They are FDIC insured upto certain level. Interest is always a free money. Even if you pay all your bills and have very less amount left, you will start making interest until you pay your bills and that is a motivation indeed. I'd recommend banks that are FDIC insured to be 100% sure about the safety of your money plus look for savings account for saving with interest
2) Credit cards offer indirect money - Though having too many credit cards, opening and closing of many bank accounts affects your credit score, one of you in your family either yourself or spouse can avail interesting sign-up offer from banks, credit card companies etc. If you carefully analyse the credit score they talk more on maintaining proper payment history. IF you want to close a credit card to avoid annual fees after the offer expires, do so . Typically closure of latest credit cards will not impact your credit score greatly. Also, if you already own a property and dont plan to buy one in near future what is the reason behind hanging around credit score. Instead focus on making money utilizing sign-up offers
There are ton lots of sign-up offers to choose from - purchase cash back, travel rewards, business card rewards etc. If you plan of travel some cards offer unbelievable sign-on bonus that you cant choose to miss today. Typically they cover 80 to 90% of your ticket cost. Plan properly before travel
3)Annual Passes to save on tickets during travel and recreation - If you are passionate about visiting national parks, purchase annual passes. This will help you save good. Check for deals before making purchase. Note that you opt to choose one-time pass until upto annual national pass depending on your requirement. If the parks are not close by and you have no interest then go for single time passes. This does hold good with aquarium, zoo visits.
Checking deals before visiting them can be beneficial at times. Say if you plan on visiting zoo, they offer movie on a particular day of a week. This will help you save towards family movie cost for that month. Check deals, coupoun offers in their website, plan wisely to save big on your visits
4) Wants should not win over needs - In most cases we splurge money only if we dont have clear understanding of what we want in life. So, to save better first know if this is a want or a need. Lets take a day-to-day life example. Make list of items to purchase in a piece of paper before making grocery purchase. This helps you save money on unnecessary purchase. Also, maintain a notebook with details on monthly grocery, update it if the product is out of inventory. We might end up ahving 20 salt boxes that does come to our notice only upon vacating the house :)
5) Realize the Time value of money - Time is money. Use it in its best possible way. IT can even help you relax yourself, create something interesting that makes you feel better, can help you develop new skills. As such make best use of your time to be really happy. IF you prefer to do exercise use your time to do so. Health is wealth. Realize that the time you spend on exercises does help you save on insurance and medical costs in future
6) Sign-up for email alerts, maintain reward cards, cehck offers before every purchase - This happened to me last week. I have been regular customer of a pizza brand. I wanted to buy pizzas from them and happened to check my mail before making purchase. Unexpectedly I found a coupoun satisfying my need. This helped me save $5 on my purchase. Also, surprisingly I got an offer from discover card online purchase that will allow me to buy pizza for $10 anytime for next 6 months. So, signup and check for offers before making purchase on food, grocery, clothing, auto repair, auto maintenance, pharmacy delas like walgreens balance rewards, CVS pharmacy cards etc
7) Think About Usability Of A Product Before Purchasing - Penny Saved is Penny earned. I went to a Retail Chainer during last week to purchase a new dinner set for forth coming parties. I was very happy to roam around the shop seeing colourful products of variegated brands. They had a rich collection of dinners ets starting from $14 to about $250.
When I checked the number of pieces and type of items almost each dinner set had same number of items and similar kind of items. I still agree that quality is going to be different.
I'm going to use it whenever there is a party organized at my home. We hardly had 6 parties during the last 4 months. Considering the usability as the major factor I chose a dinner set worth $33. My initial budget was $50. I saved $17 in this purchase. So, whatever you save in your purchase is always an add-on. So think about usability of an item and there are chances that you might save good
8) Focus should be towards increasing the income rather than calculating the percentage of savings
Whenever we bring home salary on post-tax, 401K and such contribution basis it becomes necessary to determine what portion of income can be saved. As such many say 50% savings is better to start with. I've a totally different view on savings. Lets consider some simple real-life examples
8.1) Person making salary $3000 per month living in most expensive area. How much can he save? Let say average rent is $1000, expenses per month on groceries, utilities etc come around $500, car maintenance, repari (or) public transit costs him $100 all he can save is 40 to 50% of his salary
8.2) Now the same person makes $5000 instead of $3000 - This automatically increments his savings by 20% extra
Does that mean that this person has improved his spending habit in due course? Hence, whenever we talk of saving our income we need to calculate the amount that we earn. If we are capable of saving money that can take care of 15 more days that would be extermely ideal in case of very low income.
