5 Ways to Save Money Every Month

Once you reach the age of wanting nice things, to move out, or buy a new car, learning how to save money every month is something you should probably do.

Stop Spending So You Can SAVE Money Every Month

First, before you even think about saving money, you need to think about how you’re going to STOP spending it. You might not actually have enough money to save at the end of each month due to your spending habits, or your outgoings.

Take a look at your monthly outgoings and calculate them together, these things may be;

• Your phone bill.
• Any insurance you have.
• You car finance if you have one.
• Debt.
• Subscriptions.
• Bills (if you have any yet, for example paying board or rent).

Once you have calculated all of those things, take them away from your monthly wage. See what you have leftover to spend on looking after yourself, and how much you will be able to save.

Not a lot? Do not worry! Lets continue…

Reducing Your Monthly Outgoings

This is split into two sections, things you NEED to spend each month if they apply to you, and things that are a luxury.

Need To Spend

These are a few things that you may be paying for each month. You might have other important monthly outgoings, however, these are just the things most people will be paying

• INSURANCE –
  What do you insure? Your luxuries? Your car (you need to keep this).
  Years ago, I didn’t realise I had paid for insurance on things like my camera, my iPad, laptop etc… These were all around £10 a month. I consider myself to be a careful person and I didn’t need to actually insure these items, so I cancelled them, freeing up around £40 of outgoings every month.

• DEBT- Not everyone has debts…
  You need to pay your debts so of course, you cannot cancel this. If possible, getting your debts down quicker will be in your favour. Once your debts are gone, you will have more money and less stress. By taking away some of your other outgoings, you will be able to pay off your debts quicker.

• BILLS –
  If you are living at home or with someone else, you might be paying rent or board. This is money that you will have to spend, there’s no getting around it. However, if you live at home, maybe you could see if there were other things you could do to earn your board like different jobs around the house etc so that you could pay less. I know this is probably not a possibility, but if you are trying to save to move out, they might be encouraging.

‘Luxury Spending’

These are the things that are classed as a luxury. You can survive without these things, (although we all have them)… Well, you can survive with spending fewer on these things let’s say.

• PHONE –
  You don’t need the latest most expensive phone every year. In fact, paying for a phone above what you can really afford is not a good idea.
  If you are paying for a phone that has finished its contract, have a look around online to find a cheaper sim only contract to put into your phone. If you are tied into a contract already, think about keeping your phone for another year or so when it has ended.

• CAR –
  Do you pay hundreds of pounds a month to have the newest car, to drive to work and to sit on your drive at home? Once again, if spending this much money is within your means then it is fine, but if spending this much money means you are living paycheck to paycheck. Then maybe reevaluate whether you really need to be spending £300 a month on a car… Once you have saved money and are in a better position, then, by all means, buy the car.

• SUBSCRIPTIONS –
  There are tons of monthly subscription things now. They could be apps on your phone, boxes sent to your door ANYTHING.
  If it is 100% something you NEED in order to survive(?), then you will have to continue. However, you do not need a box of make up every month, or a crate of beer, or an app that gives you daily quotes. Cancel these direct debits and your subscriptions and you will have more money already.

• OTHER THINGS –
  This means things like clothes, going out, getting your hair/nails done etc…
  All of the things you like to spend money on to make you feel happier, but also things you don’t really need to spend money on.
  By all means, treat yourself! You deserve it.
  BUT if you are a shopaholic who gets their hair done weekly, fresh nails two weeks, and all that stuff. Then think about if you really need it. Especially if you are trying to save for bigger things.
  All these costs (even though they seem small when you do them) all add up!

Once you have narrowed down the things you are going to cut back, calculate what you will then have at the end of each month.

Lower? GOOD!

Keep on lowering your monthly outgoings until you are able to save more money.

I don’t know about you, but saving money for me is actually fun. (Is that weird?)
I love the feeling of being able to put money away so I can buy a house in the near future or even a new car.
Once you get into the routine of saving and seeing that amount of money pile up, then you will want to keep going.

Next let’s look at the five ways you can save money every month.

Five Tips on How To SAVE

The following steps are not in order of how to save, but more like their own saving techniques.

All of them should work for you!

Try them out and see.

You can always tweak your ways of saving so that it works for you, everyone has their own ways of doing things.

• ONE

Put away money as soon as you get paid.
I find this helps if you are putting money into an ISA. You can save up to £200 a month! Put this money away straight away so you don’t have to think about it again.

You could even direct debit money into a different account so you don’t even realise you’re saving it!

• TWO

Put small amounts of money into your savings every week.
Someone suggested on Twitter to save your hundreds and spend the tens…

For example, if you have budgeted to spend £150 a week, then cut it down.
You could also put the hundreds or the tens straight into savings.

OR if that seems like too much, even putting £10 away a week will amount to an extra £40 in savings per month.

• THREE

Plan how much you need to spend every month.
Once you have done this, calculate how much you will have leftover, and how much of that you need to spend.
Any extra can go straight into savings.

For example, I knew that I could live off £100 a week living at home, so I was able to put £200 into savings at the start of every month AFTER calculating what I would spend on monthly outgoings. Then anything I didn’t spend (point number two) I would then put away.

• FOUR

Use emergency money.
Not a lot of people do this, but I love this idea and I have done it for some time.
There may also be other conceptions of emergency money but this is just mine. SO, I put £200 into an emergency money pot on my online banking every month.

The point of this is in case you have to spend money on an emergency.

For example, you might need new tyres, or your phone might have broken. You won’t have to worry about dipping into your savings because you always have that £200 in your emergency pot. If you don’t spend it at the end of the month, just keep it there and save an extra £200 next month if you can.

• FIVE

Evaluate at the end or start of each month.
By this I mean start with the same amount of money every month.

The amount you get paid… (If you get paid monthly… If you don’t then you could try work around this idea by starting each month with the same amount of money).

So, if at the end of the month you have money left over, put it into savings.

The best way to do this is to see how much extra you have in your account when you get paid, and just put it all away until you have the right starting amount.

***

If you are reading this during the Coronavirus lockdown, I have some posts that may help you in other areas too!

• Things to do during lockdown
• Self-care whilst at home
• How to stay healthy during lockdown

Please let me know in the comments below if this post has helped you! I also have a board on Pinterest about how to make money from home if you wanted to check that out too…

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