Daniel & I have become quite good with our savings over the years, especially after moving out. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re tight ass mother forkers though. We still spend, we just got better at saving so that we can simply spend more where it matters. Here’s what we’ve been doing.
① Decide & Prioritise
Everyone has different priorities, you just need to figure out what matters to you most & go from there. For us, this includes business expenses where a positive return on investment is expected, personal experiences such as travel & occasions with our family/closest friends such as birthdays, dinning out, gifts etc.
② Set Up A Separate Savings Account
An initial key step that was very effective for us. Having an online savings account is a great way to manage your money. Unlike a transaction account, you can’t spend money directly from a savings account so it’s harder to dip your hands into your savings. To grow your savings faster, look for an account with the highest interest rate & no fees.
③ Save Automatically
Once you’ve got your savings account all set up, try having a portion of your earnings automatically deposited into this account to keep you contributing consistently.
④ Pay Off Some Debt
Nobody wants to do this, but believe me it’s always a good habit to do so. Paying off your debts sooner can save you thousands in interest so start with the one with the highest interest rate. If you have some money left over after your regular expenses, use it to make extra repayments towards any credit card debt or loans you have. Sometimes we even do this before our regular expenses.
⑤ Track Your Spending
You may not feel that a coffee or other little daily purchases will have any impact on your savings, but seeing a sum of your purchases may change your mind.
⑥ Change A Spending Habit
Once you start to track your spending you’ll then have an idea of where your money is going. Small spending changes can lead to big savings in the long run so try to change one regular spending habit & go from there. I’ve always had good spending habits, but Daniel on the other hand.. nope. He was a big spender on designer brands so we turned to online sales as an alternative where he could still purchase desired clothing (at a discounted price rather than retail price) instead of eliminating that habit entirely. Did that for sometime until he grew out of interest for designer brands so win win. He’s now moved onto gadgets, tools & boats though LOL
A habit which both Daniel & I changed together was set weekly meal plans so we could cut down on eating out during work hours. Eating out instantly becomes a norm when you work in corporate & don’t even get me started on the drinks. We packed our own lunch for majority of the week & it really did lifted the dent we had in our savings. We were spending $12.00AUD mininum a day each when we ate out so we saved plenty when we made the change.
○ Cut down on the number of coffees you have daily or even switching from a large to a small coffee.
○ Reduce your alcohol intake, this one’s a bonus towards your health benefits.
○ Cook your own food more times than ordering in.
○ Stop buying bottled water, just use your own.
○ Reduce smoking or just quit, enough said.
○ Grow your own herbs & veggies.
○ Borrow instead of buying. If a friend of mine has the missing piece to complete my outfit look for an upcoming event I’d just borrow it from her & vice versa. Often you’d end up just wearing that particularly item for one event only anyways. Also, we’ve done clothes swap with our baby’s clothing since becoming mums, it saves so much because they grow out of it so fast!
○ Sell your preloved belongings, don’t be a hoarder.
○ Cancel your gym membership if you ain’t going enough. We cancelled ours due to relocation even though we only paid $12.00AUD/week (for us both together). We set up a gym a home which we calculated to be much cheaper & saves us travel time.
○ Lower the temperature on your hot water heater. We only learnt of this one when we first moved out because that electricity bill went off the roof!
○ Invest in major home appliances with high star rating; more energy efficient & it costs less to run.
○ Install solar panels
○ Switch to a cheaper phone & internet plan.
○ Shop at Kmart! They have good quality products for such low prices, they’re just ridiculous I love them.
○ Think twice, no impulse purchases meaning quit buying little-cheap unnecessary shhh, you know what I’m talking about.
⑦ Time Major Purchases Around Sale Periods
Demand fluctuates by the season for certain items & you can time your major purchases to assist with your savings.
○ Start of spring to buy winter clothes because retailers want to get rid of last season’s trend. Honestly, we’ve been wearing last season’s winter trends every year, but fashion trends are rewinding if you haven’t noticed. Besides, it don’t matter if it goes out of fashion, you just gotta style it your way & make it work. Don’t wait until boxing day sales for fashion, C’mon guys, don’t be fooled. Prices get lifted towards end of year & then drop for boxing day period so technically it’s not even a ‘sale’.
○ End of summer to buy swimwear. An ongoing obsession of mine as you all know by now. I do occasionally get gifted bikinis, but when I do buy them myself they’re about $10.00AUD a set or even cheaper. There’s no such thing as last season’s swimwear trend for me, my body is the trend.
○ The end of December to buy a car at dealerships because they want to meet end-of-year quotas. TBH though, try Pickles anytime throughout the year because you’ll always find better deals there! Dealerships don’t even exist to us, we never go there.
○ Start-mid June to buy new gadgets because you’ll always find better deals at end of financial year sales. Though, for some reason Daniel keeps damaging or loose his phone around November (his birthday)..
○ Boxing day period to buy furniture & household items.
⑧ Online Shopping & Buy Used
Why pay the retail price. Daniel & I have turned to online shopping for many things when needed including vehicles, major home appliances, furniture, exercise equipment & clothing. Black Friday for clothing & footwear, private/moving sales for everything else. We only discovered moving sales when we first moved out, why not earlier! You’ll be surprised with the quality x value too because often they’re just slightly used, still in good-brand new condition, yet sold at a fraction of the cost (sometimes even for free depending on your timing) to the retail price.
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