#SavingsJourney #FinancialSuccess #MoneyManagement
Hey everyone! 👋 I’ve been really struggling with saving money lately. Every time I try to save, I end up spending it on something else. 🤦♂️ I know I can’t be the only one dealing with this, so I’m turning to you all for some advice!
To those who used to struggle with saving but now have a good amount saved up, how did you do it? Any tips or tricks to share with the rest of us? 🤔
I’ve been brainstorming some ideas on how to improve my saving habits, like:
– Setting specific savings goals 🎯
– Automating my savings transfers 💸
– Tracking my expenses to identify areas where I can cut back 📊
What do you think of these strategies? Do you have any other suggestions that have worked well for you? Let’s help each other out and make some progress on our savings goals! 💪
Stopped not saving, started saving. There’s no secrets.
Make a budget and stick to it
Made more money
At one point it clicks. Forcing myself to stop spending won’t work. Not for long term, anyways. Spending money gives me joy, that’s why I do it. So in order to stop, I have to find something else that gives me the same level of joy. That way I won’t be tempted to revert back to the old ways. I find this to be the most effective so far. Goodluck!
Made more money was huge for me. I don’t know how people get ahead on 60k, even 70k to be honest.
Getting a better job made it much easier. I also transfer my set saving amount out if my account straight away.
I cut unnecessary expenses.
Make coffee at home instead of buying.
Make lunches/take leftovers
Cut streaming services to one
Switched my phone plan (Telstra to Belong)
Put all your money in an account you don’t have a card for (utilities, bills etc can come out of here too). Then pay yourself a limited amount each week into a spending account with a debit card – this is for your groceries and “fun money”
I spent the time to sit down and count up all my nonessential spending last year. The numbers made me want to cry. $2000 on new clothes. $800 on eyelash’s. $1000 on nails. $4000 on takeaway and eating out. >> and this was me being the ‘frugal’ one out of my friends. Anyway, I cut it all out and now I track all my non essential spending monthly. I managed to pay off my 13k eye surgery in 5 months.
I have no savings currently. When I did I was working jobs I enjoyed alongside my normal job. I worked as a waitress and a fancy wedding place loved my Co workers the job and the chefs cooked us meals which was a nice bonus. I also worked on a boat, most of the week ( this become my main job 4 nights at sea) retail (normal steady job) and catering and cleaning for a dive company. Oh yeah I lived regional too. So not much to spend money on expect eating out and drinking. But I had very little time for that with all the working I was doing.
Another way I found helpful is locked bank accounts money goes in but you need to give notice to withdraw it. Rabobank and virgin money have these. I wish more banks did this. tbh.
Have your pay deposited into two accounts – one that’s savings and you don’t touch or have a card to, and one that’s for everyday that you use for transactions. This is how I started. If your employer can’t do this, set up a direct debit from your main account to the savings for the same day your pay drops so it’s gone immediately. Put the savings into a high interest account – these often have minimum requirements to qualify for the extra interest, so incentivises leaving the money there. In many respects, it’s out of sight, out of mind. Also teaches you to live well within your means if you’re not spending that component on the reg.
read a book called the millionaire next door. It pointed out to me I needed to stop expecting the world to hand me shit and I needed to pull my head out of my ass
Became a saver overnight
Married someone who is good at savings and let her manage the money lol.
Just don’t spend. Pay “savings” like a regular bill, don’t just leave the cash in your regular bank account, and be serious with yourself about what are needs and what are wants.
Stay away from social media. Less desire to purchase and thinking we are missing out as everyone in social media is leaving the dream
To save money from a job it needs to be high paying, and you need to not allow lifestyle creep to happen (hard).
Good jobs for this involve those with high bonus/commission
To really save the money should come in in a big chunk, a capital gain for example from selling shares, business or an asset.
Some guys I know with lots of cash do it by treating their income as a means to service debt, use debt to acquire assets. Then sell when it makes sense.
for me personally, the struggle was being diligent and not relaxing, as soon as I relax I’d buy some toy or thing or new kitchen gadget or whatever interested me at the time.. it’s still a big struggle. In general terms I do my best when I focus on making every single dollar go as far as it can, and I do my best to earn as much as I can.
When you combine your focus and attention on both increasing your income AND reducing your outgoings it can make quite a difference even if either side of that equation isn’t a big change.
For my partner I could never get her to take an interest in that sort of focus and for a long time it made it hard to save money as a couple, then I setup bucket budgeting, and everything changed for her, and for us as a couple She just isn’t interested in finance as such and just wants easy. Having “buckets” which for us is the usual separate accounts similar but slightly different categories to barefoot investors advice, that just made it easier for my partner, she could look at the account say for groceries and know how much she could spend, if she spent too much and the money in the grocery bucket ran out before the end of the month, she knew well, that’s it we eat what’s in the pantry lol.
Since we moved to bucket budgeting, our relationship is better, my partner is happier and we have been saving money way more than before, before I would save and she would spend, resulting in going nowhere.. but what works for you may not be that but something else, the main thing is not giving up, keep chipping away.
Make more money
I increased my income without allowing my expenses to increase
I stopped spending and started saving. There isn’t anything to it
Invest it in so you don’t have any money to spend
$27.30 a day works out to be 10k a year.
Once you really start to comprehend how much you can save by not spending unnecessary, you can really start to save.
It’s a mindset.
Go look at your bank account and see what you’ve spent in the last 2 weeks. Sometimes it’s a slap in the face.
Just to start, try to put $50 a week aside and don’t touch it..
After a couple of months you’ll be able to grow that number, but the biggest thing to do is start.
Partner is much more better at spending than I am (does not impulse buy).
Having a shared account also makes me conscious that it is not my money that I am spending but theirs as well.
Doing a once off budget of all expenses and savings going in and out.
Learning to save for big ticket items in the long term instead of small ones in the short term.
Learning that by having more savings equals less financial stress and that it was one of the reasons parents divorced.
Lastly, knowing that over the long term any savings can be magnified with compound interest.
Separated from my ex wife. Seriously, I cannot stress enough how important it is to be careful who you marry. I took a pay cut and had sole custody of my son. Still saved way more than I ever did with my ex and 2 incomes.
Network. Tickets. Doubled my income. Networked some more. More tickets. Network. Keep living as if you get paid $1k a week, don’t let those extra digits go to your ego.
One of the best things came from an ex’s dad, he would say “if I wanted to buy something I would wait and think about it, if I still wanted it a few months later then I would buy it.” If you think like that then you don’t even have to think about “saving money” because it becomes natural.
Earning more makes it easier
My wife and I pre kids about 12 years ago moved to regional vic at the time rented. House 3br for only 290 a week whilst earning combined at the time around 180k. We could save from memory 4-5k a month.. in only two years we had 100k and moved back to Melbourne to buy a house in 2012. I was fortunate to work for a company with many locations and wanted me to move there so they also paid our moving costs, first month rent etc
Increased our household income, decreased our spending. We made an excel budget and tracked every single expense over a 10 month period, adjusted the spending as necessary to achieve our savings goal.
Legit just saved 1/3 of my income upfront instead of saving what was left after being paid – that’s all i did.
And no, i didn’t live with anyone and yes i paid all my own bills including rent.
See where you can cut spending. I grew up relatively poor, so pretty frugal. I see people dining out and spending at cafes multiple times a day and think they’re nuts. I also see people taking out debt equal to or greater than their annual wage for a new car. Yes it’s lovely, but an old shitbox will achieve the same goal without the debt.
What do you want to save for? What are you willing to compromise for it?
Getting a better paying job is the other obvious thing, but if you spend too much on 50k, you’ll (likely) spend too much on 150k.
Don’t save, invest.
I started off small with a “no spend week” every few months, where I wouldn’t buy anything discretionary / non essential. So no coffee, eating out etc. I’d still pay for transport and bills of course. And whatever was left over would go into a separate savings account. Eventually, I broke out of the habit, and once my savings started growing, it was easier to keep going.
Just got made redundant and received a big payout, easy.
Mentally focused my ‘addiction’ to the high of buying new things to the high of watching my savings grow. It’s all mindset.
I have a number of different accounts that money gets transferred into each pay. E.g. bills, holidays, spend, saving, etc.
All my bills direct debit of the bills account, so I know taking money from that one is non-negotiable. It also gives me peace of mind knowing that when a bill comes in, I don’t even have to worry about it. I’ve added up my bills for the year and added a buffer, then divided the total to get a fortnightly amount. As well as the usual bills such as electricity, gas, rates, water, health insurance, I’ve also included the yearly ones such as car service, house insurance. Also gap payments for dental and health.
For my savings account, I found it more motivating to get one that pays you a bonus interest that requires you to have more in the account than the previous month (ING savings maximiser). Knowing I will miss out on money helps me not touch it. I’ve also named the account DON’T TOUCH so I get that reinforcement each time I look at it. I’ve also hidden it from my balances screen on the app.
One of the things that made me change my ways was unexpectedly losing my job. I had been with the same company for 17 years and was in debt, confident I could pay it off. I was suddenly made redundant, and although it paid off the debt, it didn’t leave much else. I realised that I was always only a couple of months from being homeless. That has spurred me to always have a contingency account with at least 6 months living expenses. Since that time, I have had some periods without work in between contracts, and been comfortable that I could survive, and have planned for this by topping up the account. I’ve also changed my thinking that my contingency account isn’t savings. It’s a survival account.
Savings for something special are on top of that, so I have a designated holidays account.
I was in a long distance relationship, and about six month out from moving to her city it dawned on me that outside of her, I had no support there, and couldn’t rely on anyone else to help me should things hit the fan. Initially I went too far the other way, saved every dollar I could & even stressed over the cents. Six years on and I’m at a happy medium now, purchased a house, emergency fund etc, but still splurge occasionally. I find I enjoy the spending more now, because it is intentional instead of aimless.
In short, I backed myself into a corner & had to become a saver, at least initially.
We get married in November!
Worked out a really solid but reasonable and liveable budget, and started saving first. When we get paid – money gets moved around into various sinking funds: Bills, savings, spending.
Spending money covers everything in a week – I don’t scrimp on this amount because if you do, you’ll end up topping up from your savings. I also have this amount with an entirely different bank which is just a mental thing but does help.
Bills covers all fixed bills for a year, broken down into a weekly payment. This account has money moving through it all the time.
Little tricks like saving in round numbers so it’s that much more annoying to transfer out help me too lol. But primarily – picking a savings amount and always transferring that first made the biggest difference, rather than just trying to save whatever is left over.
Oh and avoiding lifestyle creep. All pay rises just top up savings amount, also any overtime earned by husband, the tax cuts etc. I review these figures every 18m or so, but only savings and bills have shifted.
Earn more than you spend. Chase the dollars, and the pennies will look after themselves.
Probably not relevant for a lot but I moved from the UK in 2019. Same job I was earning £27k in the UK, moved and started on $90k. Rent was a fraction of my take home pay compared to the UK. I had $2k when I moved here, within 1 year I had $50k. When your outgoings are low and you have little responsibilities I found it fairly easy to save. Bought all my clothes second hand, no overseas holidays and phone was owner outright and I drove a 2005 Subaru. Saving for a house deposit? Now that’s another issue – the amount needed is so huge. Only just got there this year but only with help from a partner. Not impossible but hard going and things are different now in 2024 with COL being much higher
Spend a month writing down everything you spend (down to the last cent). I’d recommend doing this on paper and through the day (as in when you actually spend the money).
Two things happen: firstly, writing it down is a pain and you start to think whether or not you really want/need the thing.
Secondly, at the end of each day/week/the whole month you get this amazing view that OMG you’re spending a fortune on coffee (this was me at university!) or food delivery or parking or whatever. Then you can say ok, I’m spending $10 a day on coffee – I’ll halve that and at the start of the month put the $100 in savings. (Or, if you’re paid fortnightly then $50 – you get the idea)
Rinse and repeat. Also, if you get to the end of the month/pay cycle and have money left over, put that in savings too
Rinse and repeat.
The most important thing when u just start is realise being poor is a mind set
U make poor decisions poor life choices have poor attitudes and eventually end up poor
Poor is a mind set
The issue is everyone that gives u sound advice
Is treating the symptoms not the cause
Cool just save save for what ? What u saving for how to save why save what’s the motivation 2 do it? Like there’s so many layers and u need to self develop why you are doing it so you can without a doubt know u are going the right direction and u have the conviction in your mind it’s the right thing because u will be challenged and be weak at times need to pull through cravings and urges.
This is why people fall back to the same destructive behaviour. Oh one more time. Last time. I just really need it right now. Last time and I’m off for good. I need a quick fix cuz I’m so insert excuse.
Instead of holy shite I need to sort this or I’m gonna be dead or worse poor for life!
Spent less than I earn. There is no magic.
Lived with my parents, didn’t piss my money against the wall too much, didn’t go on holidays, worked a decent amount of overtime.
My partner did the same and we were able to manage property to essentially pay our PPOR off.
I did the barefoot investor thing and just had lots of accounts everywhere for different buckets of savings goals. Had it automated so money got sent there by payroll
So on pay day my spending account would only have enough for me to live off, kinda of tricked myself psychologically to survive under additional poverty conditions.
But would be grateful for when big bills come in like car rego that I could open the car account and see money in there to use for it and not feel like it affected my day to day.
There are disadvantages to this method of course, like missing out on interest from HISAs or even offsetting the interest on your home loan.
Earn more, spend less.
Post your weekly budget, without numbers hard to help.
– Increased my salary by job switching every 2.5-3 years.
– Never let lifestyle creep set in. (Actually lowered my rent over the last 3 years, have the same car that runs fine)
– Write down every expense that’s going out of your account each month and cancel those not necessary and try find a cheaper deal on those that are.
– Always wait a month on those impulse purchases, you’ll find that often you don’t want them as much as you think.
– If you are going to buy it, you can bet you can get ShopBack / CashRewards from it.
– Learn to cook, especially given how much eating out has inflated recently.
– Put your money in a HISA if you need it in the next 1-2 years. Into index funds (even all in the S&P 500 if you want to go full laidback mode with decent enough returns) if you want you money later.