Our most important tip for saving money fast is pretty simple: Learn to budget. If you’re in control of your budget, you’re in control of your finances. But where to start?
Before you can start saving money every month, you need to come to grips with your cash flow. This means understanding all of your incoming and outgoing revenue streams, including any debt repayments, monthly bills and savings contributions.
Here’s how to create a budget so you can start saving fast:
Keep track of all of your finances over a 30-day period. This includes all of your income and expenditures.
Compare your monthly income to your monthly expenditures to assess how much you’re currently managing to save, or how much you’re overspending each month.
Separate your expenditures into fixed and variable costs. Your fixed costs are expenses that are typically difficult to adjust, such as your rent and utility bills. Your variable costs include more readily-adjustable expenditures such as groceries, entertainment and subscription services.
Identify any variable costs that you can start cutting back on to increase how much you can put towards your savings goals each month.
Assess your progress regularly and make adjustments if necessary. If this seems a little overwhelming, there are plenty of budgeting apps available that can help make sticking to your budget easier.