Let’s be honest, saving money is tough. If it were easy to do, we’d all have enough in the bank to comfortably retire when the time comes, but that is not reality. If you have the money available in your account to access, so you will no doubt spend it on monthly expenses or impulse purchases. In order to get the upper hand on future savings, there are a few tricks to maximize you balance by the time you are ready to leave the working world and move onto solely living life’s adventures.
Think About Every Purchase
Online shopping is probably the biggest shopping offender, as you have practically anything you can think of available to purchase at the tip of your fingers, sometimes just one click away. At least in retail stores you can take a look at the item and think about it before you take it up to the register, but online it’s pretty instantaneous. If you are looking to make a purchase, sit and think about it for a couple days or weeks, and if you still need it after that time, maybe it’s a necessity.
Don’t Sacrifice Happiness
Saving is extremely important to your future, making sure you have enough to life off when you do retire and no longer have that income coming in, but there actually can be a point of saving too much. When you stay in your house all the time afraid to spend a dollar, you actually could be missing out on life experiences that you should be enjoying while you are not, and not regretting later in life.
Earn Extra Income
If you are able to generate extra income on the side, you can use this entirely for the future, and rely on your day job as income to live off of now. If you ever get to a point where you are bringing in a ton of extra income say from property rentals, if you can use your second income to live off of and your primary income for saving, you are in great shape.
Log Spending and Saving
You may think you are in good shape when it comes to spending and saving, but the only way to really tell is to track every dollar. For spending, if you take last month’s credit card or bank statement, you can actually go line by line to see what was a necessary vs. unnecessary charge, and work to limit those. For saving, sometimes seeing the balance rise each month is motivation to continue to contribute more.
Stop Putting It Off
The longer you wait to make the life adjustment and focus by making saving a priority, the more you are shorting yourself in the future. No matter your age, you can make changes right now to increase savings, maximize 401(k) or IRA contributions, so that you can continue to build this income to have later on to enjoy in your golden years. You want to be those seniors that are able to travel and live life to its fullest all the time.