Are you watching the pennies right now? Lots of us are for many different reasons. Whether it’s a job loss, a change in circumstance or something completely unique to you, it doesn’t mean you can’t start saving for the future. It could be for a wedding, a house deposit or perhaps your retirement. Whatever you want to save, there are ways to save money on a tight budget. Let’s have a look at a few ideas.
Put Away A Certain Percentage
When money is tight it’s hard to see a way of saving any of the cash that is coming in. One way to ensure you are putting some cash away is by saving a certain amount. Create yourself a budget made of percentages. One popular way of doing this is the 50/30/20 budget. This means you use 50% for things like rent, mortgage payments, food and bills. You know, the necessities. The 30% goes towards wants with the final 20% going into savings or towards debt. Of course, you can move these percentage numbers should you need to. This is a great start to our list of ways to save money on a tight budget.
Pay Yourself First
Make sure you pay yourself first. This is one of the ways to make sure that you can actually build some savings. When you get paid, transfer the proportion that you want to save into a separate bank account. This can be a simple savings account linked to your current account. However if it’s away from your current account, you cannot spend it via your debit card or those saved bank details on your favourite shopping sites. If you forget to pay yourself first, you could easily end up spending that money which you wanted to set aside.
Set Up Sinking Funds
Sinking funds are perhaps one of the best ways to save money on a tight budget. Sinking funds are separate pots that you save into depending on what it is you’re saving for and how much you need to put aside. By doing this you can spread the cost of annual payments such as car insurance and road tax. You can also build a pot of savings for emergencies and even for holidays and Christmas. You might even have a number of kids so are always needing new clothes for them. This could be a great sinking fund to have. You could set up automatic monthly payments to pay into these which can then be used when you need them.
Look At Where You’re Overspending & Patch Those Leaks
Look at your money properly. It’s all well and good to set a budget but what are you actually spending money on? When you delve into the figures you might see an area where you are bleeding money every month. If that is the case, it’s time to patch those leaks and start saving that cash. It could be on travel. Is there a more affordable way to get to where you need to go? Maybe it’s takeaways? It’s so easy to order food into rather than cooking but those noodles and pizzas add up! Make sure you start saving that cash.
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Cut The Price Of Your Bills
When you cut the cost of the things you need to pay for, you’re saving money. Call your gas and electric supplier and double check you are on the best tariff. Do the same with your telephone, broadband and mobile phone companies. It might even mean cancelling some subscriptions like streaming services. Whatever you pay for, see if you can haggle yourself a better deal. You never know, in just a few phone calls on one day you could cut £100+ from the amount you spend on monthly bills. Switching broadband providers can be a great way to save you money as providers often hike up the prices mid contract. Make sure you read provider reviews before taking out a new package to ensure you’ll have good service and speeds.
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There are lots of other ways to save money on a tight budget, like using cashback sites, changing to cheaper supermarkets and cutting the utility usage in your home. Find ways to save cash every day, to bring down the amount that you are spending every month. That way, you’ll have more left over to put into your savings account.
