Ten Practical Money Saving Tips

Financial security is important to every individual. By building a workable plan, we are able to find the path to future financial freedom. I have compiled a couple of saving tips that I hope will benefit you and your family.

• Alter credit card behavior and use it wisely. Try using cash or a debit card to limit how much you spend on your every day purchases. Keep your credit card for larger purchases only. This will help you utilize the money you have and live and spend within your means. When using your credit card, be sure to settle the balance each month. By doing this, it will help you save significant amount of money by avoiding interest charges.
• Hide it before you spend it. When money is in your wallet, you tend to spend it but if hidden or it is in your bank, you won’t have that temptation to worry about.
• Keep all your receipts and keep track of how much you spend. This will allow you to monitor how much you are spending and makes it easy for you to budget or cut down on unnecessary items when you need to.
• Prepare a shopping list. By writing down all the items you require for your household, you are only getting the things that you will need. Try to resist the urge of buying something that is not on your list.
• Prepare brown bag lunches. Packing your own meals for lunch can significantly reduce your grocery bills. Lunch meals every day add to your expenses and before you know it, you would have saved that money on something more worthwhile at the end of the day.
• Avoid impulse shopping. Ever pass a store and think I have to have that awesome jacket? Or maybe that cool guitar on the shelf? Impulse shopping generally leads us to buy something that we hadn’t planned on getting in the first place and leads to wasteful spending. Before you go ahead, always think if you will really need it and if you want to save, you are probably better off without it.
• Use alternative means of transportation. If you have means to public transportation, it’s a great way to save money. Find train and bus routes to and from your destination and compare the costs of driving a car. If you and your colleagues are able to carpool, you can share the costs of going to work and vice versa.
• Save coupons and search for bargains. Although this may sound like a boring thing to do, it does help save money. A lot of stores may offer almost twice the discount up to a certain amount on purchases eg. Buy one, get one free or buy one and get another at a reduced price. Even using coupons for restaurants can help save money.