When you’re young, it’s hard to build a savings while trying to cover all of your bills and pay off debts. In fact, most young women don’t focus on building a savings because their income is just high enough to pay for rent, bills, and the minimum payments on credit cards and student loans. Fortunately, there are tricks to boost your savings a little at a time!
Of course, a budget will help you see where you can cut back so that you truly can make some savings traction. In addition to a budget, the CGS Team is sharing 5 little tricks you can start implementing today to help build your savings. A massive savings account doesn’t happen overnight. Stay consistent with what you can do and it truly will add up.
Start Getting into the Habit of Saving
The idea of saving money can seem extremely daunting when you are living paycheck to paycheck. The first way to start building a savings is to get into the habit of actually saving money. Even if it’s as little as $10 each month, the actual act of putting the money into savings will help you get into the savings mindset. Starting this mindset as early as possible will make it so much easier for you to save in the future when you make more money. Get anything you can into savings on a monthly basis!
Implement the “Cash Only” System, and Save the Change
Outside of your monthly bills and debt payments (which are perfectly fine being taken out of your account or used on a debit card), using cash to pay for the extra spending is a great way to manage your money and ultimately build a savings. The great thing about using cash for the unnecessary spending is that you have a visual spending limit.
Once your money is gone and spent, your spending is done until the next paycheck! Use cash for the unnecessary spending and put the change away. Anytime you get an actual $1 bill, put it away in an envelope. At the end of the month, deposit those dollars into your savings account.
Forget About Your Savings
One of the best ways to boost your savings is to forget about it! If you’re constantly tapping into your savings account you are defeating the purpose of actually saving. Are you tapping into your savings to pay for living expenses, or are you pulling the money to pay for unnecessary items?
If you are pulling savings to pay for living expenses, you may need to reconsider how much you put into savings on a consistent basis. You may be putting too much into savings and not giving yourself enough to live on. Cut back the amount you put into savings, so that you are comfortable “forgetting” about that savings.
Eliminate Excess Unnecessary Spending
This is where a budget will come in handy! Being able to pinpoint where your “free” money is going will allow you cut back on that spending. We’re not saying that you can’t have any fun, but to reach your financial goals, you will need some discipline.
Use those spending cutbacks to help fund your savings more than you already are. If you don’t know how to cut back or are struggling with an appropriate amount to cut back, check out the CGS Personalized Budget Plans and let The CGS Team help.
Automate Your Savings
Once you’ve established a safe amount of money to save and the consistent basis to actually save it, automate your savings! Take the burden off of you to remember when and how much to save, and let technology take over. Mark one more thing off of your to-do list and rest assured knowing that you are building your savings according to plan.
As hard as it seems to build a savings when you are limited with your income, it’s not impossible. You can establish a savings. Remember it’s not how much you save, but how consistent you are with saving and not touching it. Do you have any ways that work for you when boosting up your savings? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts.
9 thoughts on “5 Tricks to Boost Your Savings a Little at a Time”
Automating my savings has made it so much easier to save and not worry about it! My primary savings is in an online savings account that I have money transferred to and “forget” about!
The CGS Personalized Budget Plan has helped me so much with spending less and saving more. Thank you so much!
Saving money does seem so hard and requires discipline but it will be well worth it. When you have good financial habits you become more financially stable and buy yourself freedom in a way. It is truly liberating.
I think my biggest mistake is not sticking to my budget.
For saving, there’s a 52 week savings plan. You start off with depositing into your savings account $1 the first week; during the second week, you deposit $2; third week, $3 and so on. By the end of the 52 weeks, you save $1,378. It’s a easy way to save.
That’s such a great tip @shatha Thanks for sharing!!
Today is the first day (payday) I am not ordering something online I don’t need. It’s tough but it has to stop! Thanks for the encouragement City Girl!
I really like the Digit app. I don’t really miss the money coming out and it’s nice to see how much I have saved in such a little amount of time. Also about to start saving more when I get paid. Should have been doing this (outside of my automated savings acct)
Yes! Digit is great to save without much effort!