When it feels like every single penny of your hard-earned cash ends up being put towards something, you might wonder how on earth you’ve got a chance of saving anything substantial. Saving money is hard, especially when it’s so easy to succumb to the temptation to spend instead. But that’s not to say that it’s impossible.
If you’ve got a significant reason to save, like an upcoming vacation or a big life event, there are ways that you can trick yourself into saving money without even noticing anything’s coming out. In fact, you’ll probably be completely oblivious to your savings racking up, and when you do remember that money you put to one side, you might be in for a pleasant surprise.
Here are the easiest ways to save money without even realising:
Set up an automated process
When it comes to successful saving, it is best done out of sight. Most banks will allow you to automate your accounts so that a certain amount of money is transferred from your current account to your savings on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. This is a great way to build up funds, because you’re probably not going to miss that £1 that’s being moved to your savings every day, but it’ll create something really substantial within a year.
Create rules for yourself
Creating certain rules for yourself can be an effective way to save in the long run. Maybe, instead of using your spare change in those vending machines at work, you could add it to a savings’ jar instead. Then, when the jar gets full, you could empty it out and have it transferred into your bank account. You won’t desperately grieve for the spare cash, and it’ll soon add up over time.
Consider investing
Investing is very much like saving, except you can generally expect to get more back from what you put in. The beauty of investing is that the longer you can leave your money for, the better, so you can put it to one side and avoid the temptation of doing anything with it. Visit Crediful.com for more investing tips and advice.
Use an app
If you want to go one stage further than automated banking, you can use a smart app that will analyse your incomings and outgoings and work out how much of this to put into your savings, and how often. Consider apps like Chime, where you can automate 10% of your paycheck to go straight into your savings, and Digit, which calculates how much you earn versus your expenditures and saves appropriately from there.
Save unexpected payments
While you might rely on your usual monthly income to pay the rent, you should always try to put aside the money you don’t expect to receive, like tax returns and bonuses. Obviously, you should delegate a little bit for spending – who doesn’t love the feeling of unexpected income – but if you don’t need to spend the rest of it, get it in your savings.
