Different ways to save more money.

Introduction

Saving more money is an important aspect of your life that translates to achieving your dreams and living a more fulfilling life. Quite often, we all have that desire to save more but in most cases, we are prone to losing track along the way making us feel powerless to change the status quo.

In simple terms, saving is the postponed consumption that we make by arranging our wants in a scale of preference. Human wants are unlimited.

It is therefore wise to learn how to use the limited resources to satisfy the unlimited wants. Besides, money is the only economic resource that you can use to realize your financial stability.

You, therefore, need the right insights to consolidate and safeguard this treasure. To do so, you have to master the modern slavery in the 21st century called consumerism; where both the consumers and the suppliers are rational.

The suppliers or the sellers of different goods and services aimed at maximizing profits whereas the consumers aim at maximizing utility; the satisfaction they get from consuming different units of the products they purchase.

The starting point of getting anything in life is desire. The market today offers different goods and services tailor-made to meet our specific wants and needs.

With the new technology all over the world, different people have become very innovative and creative coming up with simple and more effective products to meet our day to day needs and wants. However, you do not necessarily need to use every product that you meet along the way.

The amount of money you spend every day and the rate at which you spend your money is pegged on how fast you get aroused to buy a product and at how good you are at economizing the available resources at your disposal.

Below I have come up with the various means and methods that you can apply to save your money. You will get to enjoy many benefits by saving your money as I will explain later in this article. All you need are the best insights to get started as considered but not limited to the ones below.

Comparing prices from different sellers to save more

As you do your day to day shopping, you are prone to finding a favorite spot where you will get to do most of your shopping. Groceries are the products that you may have to buy every day to prepare your desired meal. This forms a pattern in your maneuvers where shopping from the same place may sound to make a great deal. Buying from the same spot improves your rapport with the seller as a result of communicating more often making the shopping process more convenient for you.

The seller will get to understand your taste and preference hence the shopping process may become faster as the seller gets to select your preferred basket of goods for you. Interesting as it may be, you are also at the risk of paying more cash for a product that you could have purchased at a cheaper price simply as a result of failing to visit the next store.

Every now and then, make a list of the products that you buy more often, then get to visit different stores available and compare the prices at which they are selling the products. By doing so, you will get to purchase a product at the place where the price is friendlier then visit the next store that sells another variety of product cheaply.

You will get to save more money by simply breaking the myopic shopping at one specific store for all the products you require. Enjoy the cheaper prices other stores have to offer for different products and that translates to more money in your bank account.

Save the “little” coins

If the currency for your country is in the form of notes and coins, the notes in most cases have a greater value than the coins. However, after doing your shopping, you may be given coins as your balance. Some of these coins may be seen as insignificant since they don’t meet the value of buying most of the high-quality products in the market.

In most cases, these coins are used to buy petty products some of which are luxuries rather than necessities.

Your children know that you can easily give them these coins to buy petty sugary things like biscuits from the shops. These things don’t add to their diet but instead, some of them are unhealthy and may cause tooth problems in the long run where you will have to cater for the hospital bill. Make the habit of keeping these coins in a safe place every time you find yourself having a penny that does not have immediate use.

This habit will make your coins to accumulate to large amounts that you never imagined after a period of time, for instance, one month. You will be amazed when you use them to cater for your bills including paying your rent or perhaps use them to top up on the amount you require to pay your insurance premium. The more coins you save, the more notes you will have in the long run.

Read More: How To Become Rich A Guide You Should Follow

Buying second-hand goods

Buying new products is not always a guarantee of getting the best quality and effective service. You can go for a new product, for example, a car which will cost you a large amount of cash. Alternatively, someone else can opt to visit the various sites of reselling used goods at a lower cost yet serving the same purpose as a new one.

There are various sites including Amazon and eBay where people resell goods or dispose the ones they no longer need. Every time you want to get a product, ranging from cars to kitchen kinds of stuff, always consider going for the second-hand goods. You will save a considerable amount of cash which you can use for other expenses or rather expand your bank wallet.

Try out cheaper substitutes to save more

Normal goods (those whose demand increase with a decrease in price and vice versa) usually tend to have close substitutes. In simple terms, substitutes are the same but differentiated products using various measures including packaging, branding, sorting among others. Different manufacturers involved in the production of the same products face stiff competition and respond through price mechanism to secure their place in the market. Besides, already established companies quite often keep the prices of their commodities high.

This is attributed to their ability to build their name as a result of being able to reach many customers for the long duration they have been in operation. However, emerging companies usually keep their prices lower than the already established companies to attract more customers and buy more time to fit in the market. Ironically, consumers shy off from buying these new products as a result of being used to the ones that existed in the market before.

Consider trying different products available in the market going for lower prices than the one you are used to and get to enjoy maintaining your bank account with lump sum amount of cash.

Also Read: Best 31 Ways to Make Money Online from Home In 2018

Avoid visits to the mall

Occasional visits to the mall will tempt you to spend more than you could have if you chose to spend your time doing more constructive things like reading a magazine or trying out a new recipe. Visiting the mall introduces you to desiring more products that are arrayed in the market. In most cases, these products are just wanted and not needs. You would probably be fine without them and meet your objectives of saving more cash in the long run.

Hygiene maintenance

You can get to save a lot of cash by simply washing your hands after visiting the lavatory or just before taking a meal. You may think that your hands are clean hence no need to wash them as a result of failing to put into consideration the different activities in which you were involved earlier on. By touching different things including a simple handshake makes you prone to collecting bacteria causing diseases. By maintaining your hygiene, you avoid catering for hospital bills when seeking treatment for diseases caused by bacteria. And you better know that prevention is better than cure.

Consolidate your insurance

Having purchased ones desired car, many people take the insurance policy as a form of investment. Insurance policies are not forms of investment rather, they are covering that are subject to the probability that a certain risk may occur. However, there is no guarantee that the risk will occur and if that was the case, you could not have purchased the car in the first place.

You should not carry the burden of paying heavy premiums to keep you covered when the expected happens. Instead, use the various techniques to lower your premiums including visiting different insurance companies and go for the one with the cheapest premiums, analyzing the different policies for different types of cars to enable you to buy a car whose insurance policy is friendly to your pocket.

In addition, always have anti-theft gadgets and ensure you maintain a clean record by regularly servicing your car to minimize the occurrence of accidents. Application of the above and other techniques will help you save money which would have gone to the insurance companies.

Investment over debt repayment

Debt clearance is one of the ways of enabling you to accumulate more savings in the long run by avoiding interest rates charged by financial institutions. However, in the case where you have an income generating project demanding more capital input to realize more profits, sometimes it is advisable for you to consider your project before you settle your debts.

By taking the initiative to first settle your debt which is not calling for immediate action, you will be left with no money to invest in your project and make a profit. In such a situation, first, make the investment and settle your debt later.

By so doing, you will still be left with some amount of cash even after settling your debt.

Avoid instant satisfaction

As a wise man once said, the existence of a desire does not justify its satisfaction. Using your intelligence instead of your emotions is one of the key factors for saving more money.

Some products and services are very enticing and unless you are keen, you will fall into the trap of losing your money over something that will serve you for a short period. Before you make the move of buying the product, consider if it is something that you really need or just a luxury which you can do without.

Enjoy the process

Enjoying every step you take towards achieving your goals will make the process easier and effective. Quite often, most people get discouraged along the way before realizing their goals. Paying too much attention to the results at the same time negating the process may leave you discouraged as a result of being unable to hit your target.

Being successful at doing something calls for your determination and discipline along the journey.

Many are the times that you get to feel as if the arrival to your destination is delayed tempting you to lose focus along the way. Every person that you may consider as successful in accumulating a lot of money, did not achieve those results as a matter of chance or luck.

Patience is the key to being successful and for you to be good at this, you will have to enjoy every step you take and you will be amazed at how fast you will turn your desire into reality.

Get to learn the DIY skills to save more

You are not born with the know-how and skills to fix every issue that comes your way. Some of the problems we experience calls for help and advice at a few.

However, you don’t have to pay for some of the simple tasks you can easily fix by simply getting to know the steps you need to take and the resources that you will apply.

Most of the skills you require, for example, knowing what to do when some of the applications on your phone are malfunctioning, all you need is search on the internet and get to learn the specific steps required to solve the problem.

During your free time, visit the various sites on the internet and learn new skills that rotate around the entities that you use every time and then. That translates to more dollars in your bank account.

Read a lot

Information is power. Most of the great leaders all over the world are also very good readers. This is no exception when it comes to being on the front line taking charge of how you save more money. Different resources capture the different means and ways prior applied by different individuals which helped them to achieve good results.

As the saying goes, the experience is the best teacher, however, you don’t have to experience losing a lot of money for you to feel the pinch. Instead, learn from other peoples experience shared through the various reading materials including the newspapers, magazines, journals, reports and the internet.

Make a shopping list to save more

A shopping list will help you stay within the budget line. When you are doing your shopping, you will have to meet the opportunity cost since it may be impossible to meet all your wants at a glance. By visiting the market, you will get to see other things you want to buy which you had not planned for.

This leaves you in a turmoil since you will have to exclude other things you had planned to buy. To be on the safe side, always make a shopping list to act as your guide hence avoid incurring unnecessary expenses.

Don’t carry your credit card around

As mentioned earlier on, the whole point of saving more money rotates around avoiding unnecessary expenses. Carrying your credit card is one of the ways that will make you vulnerable to overspending. Keep your credit cards away and avoid using them as much as you can.

Carrying them with you means that you have the purchasing power of buying a lot of goods and services that are beyond the capacity of the amount of money you have in cash. By keeping your credit card out of reach, you will be in a good position to avoid suggestions that come your way and have ample time to consider if the products are worth purchasing by looking at the value they will add in your life.

Avoid the YOLO principle

This slogan is mostly used by the young generation in most cases as a justification of their extravagance. Without a shadow of a doubt, every second in our lives count and should be utilized to the fullest. But is that a right justification for pouring out every cent in your pocket in the name of enjoying life? The answer is no. Actually, most of the gifts that you will get to cherish in life are freely given by nature.

Buying to these slogans do you harm than good at the expense that by missing some occasions, you are then missing out a lot in your life.

If you are serious about saving more money and you are well informed about the benefits of saving, avoid buying from such crap. Instead, find other economical ways of enjoying the life that will get you closer to achieving your goals.

If you find yourself stuck in such situations as a result of being pressured by your buddies, be strong enough to let your goals come true and make them know that your decision should be respected. This is a reflection of being contented with your life and a bold move in realizing your goals.

Utilize the available resources to save more money

From time to time, you may be required to buy new stuff as a result of wear and tear of the previous ones. In many cases especially when it comes to replacing machinery and clothes, buying new ones sound as the better option as you will get the ones that are up to date on the market.

You may stop wearing a certain shirt simply because it lost some buttons and want to get another one from the market. Instead of doing that, take the shirt to a tailor shop and get it fixed.

In addition, for the case where your child needs a car to drive to school, and you have an old car that you no longer used since it had some malfunctioning and you managed to buy another model, take the old car to the garage to be repaired and give it to your child. That will save you from withdrawing a lot of money from your bank account.

Be the one to switch off the lights

Electricity bill is one of the household expenses that you cannot escape at the end of the day. However, you can reduce your electricity bill by simply ensuring you turn off the lights when need be especially when you are retiring to bed. These are the simple things that you may tend to ignore but they will cost you a lot of money in the long run.

Children fall in the front of ignoring the electricity bill and are mostly the victims of sleeping when the lights are turned on. Some children may not understand how much it cost you as a parent to cater for the electricity bill.

To avoid such cases as a parent, don’t entrust your children to put off the lights before they sleep, instead take the initiative of ensuring the lights are turned off in every room before you sleep.

Deal with your emotions

Sometimes you may feel stressed off after a busy day at work or when things are not turning out the way you expected. As a result of that, you may opt to go and get some drinks as a way of wiping out your stress. When you are stressed, you are at a very high risk of drinking irresponsibly and even buying a lot of alcoholic drinks for your colleagues to keep you company. In such occasions, your mind does not think rationally and you are prone to having false consciousness believing that drinking will wipe your problems away.

This will only stress you more as you wake up with empty pockets not to mention feeling guilty and irresponsible at the same time being unable to perform well at work the following day. Save your money and energy by owning up your emotions and acting accordingly. More importantly, don’t try to ignore the pain as the pain is real.

Give yourself enough time to heal and use good measures that will enable you to heal quickly. Doing physical exercises is one of the best ways to boost your mood. Besides, being faced with a challenging situation requires you to respond rather than to react. Take the necessary action required of you to make things straight.

Choose quality over quantity

You may opt to go for the product with lower prices in the market at the expense of being able to secure more units of the commodity. However, buying these cheap products will be expensive in the long run.

It is better to buy high-quality products that will serve you for a long period and additionally serve you efficiently and effectively. The cheap commodities will wear out quickly forcing you to get back to the market and look for other ones at a price.

Take advantage of the new offers from different banks.

New banks in the market apply various means to attract more customers including offering high-interest rates to the amount their customers deposit with them. In addition, some banks go a step further to giving cash rewards to every customer that opens a new account with them. Visit different banks, get to learn about their services and take advantages of these offers that make your money grow.

Benefits of saving more money

Saving money is associated with a number of benefits including good health, achieving one’s goals and dreams, having a secure old age, freedom of movement, ability to make more investments among other factors. Now let us get to discuss these benefits below.

Good health

Your health gets to improve by living a stress-free life and being able to cater to your wants and needs without seeking financial help from financial institutions, family, and friends. Being broke may bring stress and anxiety to your life as you are worried about how you will be able to cater for tomorrow`s expenses especially if you don’t have a secured source of income.

You have to jostle every day to make a living and to make the matters worse, you are worried about how you will get to make more money in the days to come. It is a bitter herb you have to swallow as the stress and anxiety drain your energy making you feel unsatisfied with your life.

However, the good thing is that this becomes a thing of the past with successful ability to save money over time bringing you contentment and good fortune enabling you to live a healthy life.

Ability to cope with emergencies

Life is full of uncertainties and it is no doubt that we are all subservient to nature. We always hope for the best but it is important to remember that the unexpected happens. We may part ways today when all seems to be running smoothly only for your car to be involved in a road accident later on only to find that you had not renewed your insurance policy. Your savings enables you to easily overcome this as you are able to repair your car easily and you can actually afford to buy a new one if you want.

Freedom

Saving gives you the freedom to travel across nations to explore the beautiful attraction sites found in different countries. You get to interact with different people, learn different cultures and enjoy the meadow of life.

Good reputation

Other people especially the youths see you as a role model who can teach them on how to spend their money wisely so that they can get to save more and be able to improve their living standards. This gets to earn you more respect in the society increasing your confidence level that insights you to contribute to nation building by enlightening others.

Achieving both short term and long term goals

Realising your goals makes you happy and enables you to live a more fulfilling life. People are motivated to work hard by two factors that are reward and punishment. Perseverance during the days when you have to sacrifice a lot enabling you to save money may be considered as a punishment. However, the reward of seeing your goals and dreams come true is worth the price.

Secured old age

As you grow old, you don’t have a lot of energy to work. Worse even, you need money to live a comfortable by being able to cater for your expenses after your retirement. The retirement schemes help some people in doing this. For the self-employed individuals mostly in the informal sector, they have to rely on the personal savings they made in their early days to secure themselves. This will save them from working later on when they no longer have the zeal to do so.

More investments

There is a positive correlation between savings and investments. More savings translates to the ability to establish more income generating projects.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, saving money is one of the most important aspects we have to consider keenly in our lives. Apply the various measures described in this article and bear the goods results later on. Working hard to make money helps you to live a good life. However, much more is required in addition to this since you need to incorporate the various measures that will help you lower the cost of your and wants and avoid unnecessary expenses. That is the key to a brighter future for you and your loved ones.