Savings doesn’t have to be difficult, or boring. Sometimes all you need is to think outside the box a little, and with the positive encouragement and ideas from those around you, the possibilities are endless! Here we come up with some easy-to-implement ways in which you can divert your money for your future financial stability and fun stuff!
- 1. Treat your savings like any other non-negotiable bill. If you pay your utility bills and taxes automatically each month, set up an automated regular payment to a savings or investment account too. You wouldn’t dream of forfeiting on your Electricity bill or Cellphone payment, so consider your savings in the same way – non-negotiable and not to be cancelled!
- 2. Pick the right name for your savings fund to encourage you to build it – an “Emergency fund” or “rainy day money” implies that something bad or gloomy is on the horizon for you, and that can make saving seem quite tough. How about renaming that account as “Future Freedom Fund” or “Fun and Frivolity”….and get excited about putting money into that account each month!
- 3. Give your bank accounts a spring clean every few weeks. If payments are creeping in that don’t serve you, then cancel them and divert the monies to your savings instead. An unused gym membership, a subscription to Audible you forgot to cancel, that “add on” of a satellite TV package you used in lockdown but haven’t looked at since? If you don’t use it and love it, then don’t pay it! Cancel and immediately arrange for that money to go into your fun savings accounts instead where they will soon pay for an extra vacation or that new car that you’ve been dreaming of!
- 4. Don’t over-commit to savings. There is little point in putting loads of money into your savings or investment account at the beginning of the month if you are almost certain to have raided it to cover other bills before you get your next paycheck. This is also demoralizing as you always seem to be back to square one. Instead, put away what you KNOW you can afford without needing to raid it. Even if that is just a few $ – Start small and build from there. If you find you have surplus money left at the end of the pay cycle, you can then add it in as bonus savings and that ALWAYS feels good!
- 5. Unsubscribe from your emails! You don’t need 1001 reminders every time you look at your cellphone that there’s a discount available on goods today. Emails that you once subscribed to because you happened to look at a store’s website are there to SELL you things! Things that you wouldn’t get up, get out, and go to a store for because you don’t need them! Take the temptation away and unsubscribe from those pesky emails NOW!
- 6. Make saving fun! Have an old fashioned thermometer picture printed and stuck on the refrigerator door – and color in every time you reach the next milestone – whether that’s every $10, $100 or $1000. When you’ve colored in, have a bit of a celebratory dance in the kitchen, or whatever takes your fancy to connect savings success with fun! If you’re saving for your dream set of wheels, that picture can be of the car, and when you’ve saved enough for a wheel, you reach for the pencils! Or color in bricks on your dream house….you get the picture? (no pun intended!)