Beginners Guide: Saving Money

I seems to me that people, including myself, hate to discuss money. Why is this? We work to make money, which in turn we spend on bills and groceries and other necessities. We might even splurge if we have a little leftover. Then it’s right back to work to keep making money. So why do we feel we can’t openly discuss the subject?

Image credit: CNBC article found here.

Here’s why: Almost half of all Americans (a polled 45%) are living paycheck to paycheck, says Alex Sadler, a writer for the Clark Howard website. The entire article can be found here. If you’ve ever seen anything by Clark Howard, he sure seems to have a good handle on money, finances, saving, and pretty much all things money related.

But 45 percent? That seems like a large amount of Americans who still don’t have this money thing figured out yet. But how many of you reading this are looking at it and saying “Yeah, that’s me”? So how do we fix it?

Image credit here.

We fix it by starting to save money. Seems simple enough. How am I supposed to save money while I am already living paycheck to paycheck? It will take some time and massive dedication, but you can do it if you set your mind to it.

• Budget. That’s right, the one thing every person dreads. But this is the most important part of getting yourself and your family out of the gutter. You need to know where every single dollar you spend is going. If you have $2,000 coming in each paycheck and $1,200 in bills for that paycheck period you should have $800 left for that pay period. Where does it go? Figuring this out will help you immensely.

  

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• Stop paying for things you don’t need or use. My husband and I don’t have cable or anything like that, we simply started out with Netflix when we got married. But somehow over the past year we ended up with Netflix, Hulu, AND Amazon Prime, all for watching movies and television shows. So I finally cancelled the Amazon Prime (since my one year was nearly up) and put my Hulu account on hold. Now this is a very small example. A solution for you may be changing your TV package, switching car insurance providers for someone with lower rates, or even just not leaving every single light in the house on during the day when it’s perfectly light outside (guilty!).
• Start saving! It will take time, but if you are intentional about it your savings will grow. It may only be saving $5, maybe $50 a month, but it will grow. Now this savings that I am talking about is money in an actual savings account that is meant as an emergency fund. I personally also have savings (cash only) in my safe at home that I am saving – one for our Anniversary trip later this year and one for Christmas gift funds. This is an entirely different type of savings for specific goals or trips that I will discuss in another article.

I hope you got some value from this. Have you tried budgeting before? What problems did you run into? Let me know in the comments! Be sure to keep an eye out for more budget and money friendly posts – or sign up on my website to be notified by email when I post.