The biggest savings goal everyone has is to set aside enough money to have a comfortable retirement. Before you get to those golden years, there will be a of bills to pay and things to buy. It always helps to have a “cushion” of savings to fall back on. Are you good with saving money?
Record Your Expenses
You can’t get a handle on your expenses unless you know exactly where the money is going. It is time to collect receipts for everything. Do this for a month and put them into categories like food, gas, credit card bills, etc. Then you can see in a snapshot just where the money is going. Some of these will be fixed costs that won’t change but a lot are areas where savings can be made.
Plan to Save
An ideal savings plan would be 10 to 15 percent of your salary set aside into a savings account. That might be tough when you’ve got all those expenses. Now is when you need to focus on cutting back in some areas. Maybe you don’t dine out as often during the week. Maybe you cut back on the daily trip to the coffee house. It can all add up.
Set a Goal
It helps if you’re saving for something specific. For instance, perhaps you know that you might want to buy a car next year. Now is the time to start setting aside a little money each week that will go towards your down payment. You can also have a goal of a remodeling project or a family vacation. It’s also not a bad idea to have any insurance policy deductions set aside in an account.
Save Automatically
Sometimes it helps to save when it happens automatically. If you deposit a weekly paycheck, then you can set up a weekly withdraw of $25 that can go directly into a savings account. You might get so used to this happening that you don’t even notice it but after a few months, you’re going to have a decent amount of savings building up.
Are you ready to start saving?
