If you’re trying to save up for a down payment on a car loan or having to cut back to pay off debt, how can you change your mindset and become better with saving money? How can you change your spending habits to help you make savings?
We asked our auto loans team to come up with some tips to save money and change those spending habits for good.
How to Become Better with Saving Money
First off, let’s just say up front that we know from our own experiences that living on a minimal budget or having to seriously cut back isn’t easy. But it is possible, we are all testament to that.
Here are a few tips we used to become better with saving money.
Create a Budget
The most important of our tips to save money is to start keeping a budget. This is best done on an excel or Google sheet, but you can also use paper if you’re feeling retro.
Set up a column to track all of your income throughout the month, and then set up another column to track your expenses. Every time money leaves your hand it gets added to the sheet be it a scheduled, automated bill payment or an impulse purchase of Chewing gum at the counter.
Ideally the more detailed you can be with your expenses the better, try breaking them down by category so you can see exactly how much is being spent on things like “food”, “utilities” and “entertainment”.
Once you have this list you can see how much you have left at the end of the month, and exactly where you can potentially cut down to be saving more.
Check Your Credit Report
Another thing you should definitely consider doing if you’re trying to get a grasp on your finances is get a credit report. You’re entitled to a free copy once every six months so you’ve got no reason not to.
Your credit report is a history of all of your loans, credit cards, and various other factors that contribute to your credit score, and as such it is an invaluable resource when trying to balance your finances, especially if you’re trying to improve a low credit score.
Prioritise Debt Repayment
If you do have lots of debt then before you start saving money you should prioritise repaying that debt, it will mean less savings in the short term but in the long term it will be massively beneficial to your financial aspirations.
If you have multiple loans then focus on the loan that’s most likely to be paid of first, while it may make sense to apply extra to all of your loans at once, focusing on the smaller ones to clear them first is actually the more efficient way to go about it because you’ll have less loans to worry about and pay less interest overall.
Do I Really Need That?
The world is built around trying to separate people from their money. Advertising, TV, magazines, newspapers and the entire internet is designed around parting us from our cash.
Your main defence, aside from avoiding media altogether is to ask yourself a simple question whenever you’re tempted to spend.
‘Do I really need that?’
As long as you can answer yourself honestly, this should reduce the number of impulse buys you make.
Unsubscribe From Newsletters
Newsletters are marketing tools for increasing engagement and to convert you into a paying customer of some kind. Some newsletters are genuinely useful and dress up that conversion with some news, tips or fresh ideas. Many are not so subtle.
Unsubscribe from any newsletter or promotional mails that don’t offer value. Times is as short as money so don’t waste either when you don’t have to.
Listen to Podcasts or Read Instead of Surfing the Internet
We spend a lot of time on our phones and a lot of that is spent shopping and surfing. If you have time to kill on the bus or train, or while waiting for something, why not plug into a podcast, listen to an audiobook or read a book on your phone instead?
You’re still being entertained but hopefully by something with a little substance rather than something you’ll forget in 10 seconds. Plus, you won’t be bombarded with temptation while you’re doing it!
Leave your Cards at Home
Having card free days can be liberating. Leave your credit cards at home in the safe and just have a debit card with you for emergencies. Keep the balance purposely low, enough for a coffee or a train ticket and nothing else.
Making it harder to spend means you’re less likely to spend. Over time, you’ll find it becomes easier to look at something and not want to buy it, which means you’re on the right track!
We hope our actionable tips to save money in 2023 help you meet your financial goals. For any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us here!