Money Is The Motive
I’ll just say it now because really this is now my mindset and the overall mood of this post. Savings, savings, savings. It’s an area I have to constantly remind myself about by the way. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m learning still how to be better at saving money. So today is really just about baby steps. And the first step is to make money and save money.
I’ll share the best piece of advice a teacher I once had told me, practice makes permanent. When you practice new habits or routines, over and over again, it makes it easier to change your mindset and change your bad habits. And blowing threw your money is the worst habit you can have especially during these uncertain times.
There’s nothing worse than when life throws you a curve-ball and you are left completely unprepared. The one piece of advice I can give is to start saving your money and start focusing on where you need to be to feel comfortable. And when I say comfortable I don’t mean complacent! There are always going to be new ceilings to reach and new goals to achieve, but you want to give yourself the mental ease of knowing you don’t have to struggle everyday. That will only happen if you start thinking about your financial goals. Financial education and that overall security is something that is on my list of to-dos and that just means that up ahead I’ll be even closer to my goals.
Monthly After-Tax Income
In general, this is a good plan to follow if you don’t have one in place at the moment.
50% Needs
30% Wants
20% Saving & Debt Repayment
Stop Eating Out
This one seems like a given, but most people aren’t exactly practicing this. I have been guilty of this for sure and occasionally have to remind myself that I’m not making the smartest decision right now. And trust me I have that talk with myself often! I do have to say I’m not nearly as bad as a lot of people I know; some of which who will literally argue with me that it makes more sense to eat out as a single person household than to just grocery shop. Where exactly are you grocery shopping Harrods? No it will never be smarter to eat out daily than to do a grocery haul. This is just facts and if you don’t agree, I suggest you go back and crunch some numbers and then also re-evaluate your spending on groceries.
I know that as I do my own grocery shopping, if saving money is your objective then you are going to have to be strategic. Yes even when grocery shopping! My suggestion is make a list of the things you need that are of substance, you know real nutritional foods? And then know where you’re doing your shopping. I don’t do all of my grocery shopping at one store especially not a store where getting five items can cost you an arm and a leg. I may shop for produce at a Sprouts, but then shop for the bulk of my items at a Trader Joes. Just depends. But going into any store with a list and knowledge of the prices makes it easier to be more cost efficient.
Adapt Your Online Consumption To Your Income
I’m going to go ahead and categorize all of the unnecessary things we repeatedly pay for that are really just burning a whole through the wallet. Since being in a pandemic luckily a lot of us have had no choice, but to cut costs for certain luxurious spending and it’s been a great help! However, since then I think most of us have upped our monthly spending to other areas like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu etc. What about those blog website hosting fees you pay for, but don’t actually utilize?
How many of you have a website that isn’t really doing much for you or your business, but you continue to pay for because well…you need one. Do you know that you can still run free sites on WordPress, Big Cartel, even WIX? If you need a site, but also just need a platform in which you can get by without the fancy domain, then utilize these sites. They’re free unless you want to use your own domain. Then you will have to pay for hosting renewals.
Let me just start off by saying there aren’t very many things you can’t watch for free online. Yes it may take a little digging, but trust me the links are out there. I won’t say much more than that. Mums the word.
Secondly, if you do subscribe to Netflix or Hulu then go ahead and cancel your cable. Personally I haven’t had a TV in years, I watch everything online and it suits me, but if you’re looking for more saving opportunity, there you go. And don’t even get me started on Amazon, it’s been quite the money pit. Not necessarily because of the membership fees, but because I’ve definitely become a self-diagnosed online shopping addict and it’s hard to stop when next-day delivery is available.
So while the spending at physical places like salons and movies have stopped, the online consumption has definitely increased. Of course, we’re stuck at home that is to be expected. But it would be wise if you’re trying to grow your money, if you pay closer attention to where that online consumption is going.
