Many of us like the idea of having more savings, but just find it very difficult to save up money. This is often because we would like some money to fall back on, we are saving up for something or just feel we should have some money behind us in case lose our jobs. However, putting money into the savings account is not always easy as we may have other things that we want and need to spend it on. So, you may need to adopt a strategy.
- Pay a regular amount in every month – it can be a good habit to set up a direct debit to pay a certain amount of money into your savings account each month. You will need to calculate how much you think that you will be able to afford to pay in based on how much you tend to earn and what you pay out each month. Remember that if you put it into an instant access account you can draw some out if you get short of money, but if you don’t pay in regularly there is less likely to be any left for you to be able to draw out. Try to put in a decent amount but, this will depend on how much you have available to you.
- Pay anything you have left in – at the end of the month if you have any money left, out it into your savings account. This is something that can help to top it up, but you need to make sure you do not just do this. This can be a mistake as you may never have anything left. We tend to be in a habit of spending all the money we have and when we check the balance and there is some in there, we spend it. Therefore, if you make sure you pay some in when you first get paid, as explained above, this will help you to ensure that you definitely save some money each month.
- Find ways to reduce spending– to free up more money you might want to try to spend less. This might sound difficult but there are things you can do which are pretty easy. You can compare the prices on everything you buy and then you might decide to buy cheaper and save money. These small savings will all add up and some of them might be quite large anyway such as buying cheaper insurance and electricity. You may also be able to buy less things, which might mean that you can save even more. Perhaps ask yourself, when you are buying things whether you really need them and then you may decide to buy a bit less and that will save extra money too.
- Find ways to earn more – it might be the case that you will be able to find some ways to earn more money as well. This could be simply from selling things you no longer need, doing some online surveys or doing a few more hours in your job. It does not have to be too complicated or difficult. We might tend to think that we will have to get a second job or try hard to get a promotion and a pay rise and although these methods will work, they will not always be necessary and they could be a step too far for you to try.
It can be a good idea to try a few different methods, but don’t forget that if you have more money available to save, make sure that you do save it and that you are not tempted to spend it all. Or spend some of it and save some of it.
