Saving money can be really difficult at the best of times, but more and more of us are now looking for ways that we can increase our savings and reduce spending. It’s easier said than done, but with We Buy Any House’s four favourite tips, you’ll see your savings building in no time!
- Set yourself a budget
Take some time to develop an outline of your households’ income and outgoings. A spreadsheet is a really helpful way to organise your finances, letting you clearly see each section and what you’re spending where, and you’ll quickly see ways that you can start to save.
Start with clarifying your essential outgoings, which will include things like your rent or mortgage, your council tax, any insurance, costs that you cannot change and have to pay. You can log these on your spreadsheet and then look at what you’ve got left for the month to cover your other bills, any food costs, and any other payments that you might make. There are different ways you can reduce these costs that you might not think of straight away– look at changing providers so you can lower your monthly charge or start meal prepping to reduce your weekly spend on food that gets wasted.
For those unsure on how to start, a good option is to log what you spend for a month or so; a lot of the time, people don’t realise what they’re spending money on or how much, but once you see where your money is going each month you can look to reduce these unnecessary costs, especially if you’re making a lot of impulse buys.
- Cancel any unnecessary subscriptions
Most of us are signed up to various subscriptions, so whether you use services like Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime, or any other monthly streaming service, you can look at lowering the costs of them. Some families will share various profiles, which reduces costs, or you can switch to a cheaper subscription option. While this saving might not seem like much at first, it will add up over time!
Remember that some of these subscriptions will still save you money, though, especially if you use something like Amazon Prime and are regularly ordering items that you need. Make sure that rather than just immediately cancelling all of your subscriptions, you confirm that it will save you money by doing so – especially if you get free, next-day delivery on your essentials. Instead, you can assess what you’re ordering and decide if you really need them or if you could be saving some money by reducing them instead.
- Keep an eye out for bargains
A lot of the time, everyday purchases are inevitable, but you can look into finding ways to reduce the costs by buying items when they’re on a good offer. There are lots of times each year where big sales will launch, especially just after the Christmas period, around Easter in the Spring and the biggest, Black Friday and Cyber Monday in November. If you know that you need to make a big purchase, like some new furniture or white goods that are usually quite expensive, trying to shop during these sales can save you a lot of money.
Sometimes, you can’t pick when you have to buy things, especially if it’s broken down unexpectedly and needs dealing with right away. If this happens and you can’t seem to find a good sale anywhere, you can look on sites that search for online discount codes, such as Honey. This is a helpful browser add-on that you can download and use, which will automatically search the net for any codes that you can use, helping you save money with no effort at all!
- Save up your change
There are banking apps that will do this for you, especially with so much of the world going cashless. These apps round up your spending to the nearest dollar and put the change into a savings account. At first, you’ll likely only see 30 cents here and there; but when you’re buying things every day, this quickly adds up.
You can also round up the amount that saves higher, too, so for example, if you spend $6, $4 will go into your savings. If you’re looking to save more, this can be a great option, but make sure that you’re not being too restrictive, as long term, this isn’t a sustainable method.
The key to saving money property is to find ways that work for you. If you’re losing motivation, try to focus on what you’re saving for, this will spur you on and keep those savings growing!
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