By 
“You can’t live without this miracle cream,” shouts an ad in a cosmetics store. Fashion retailers throw a new product on the store shelves every 2 weeks, and the supermarket is all decked out strictly according to marketing psychology. No wonder that under such pressure, the hand reaches for the wallet with itself. How to learn to save money – let’s try it together.
The reasons why you’re looking to cut back on spending can be completely different. Maybe you want to learn to save, even with a small salary, to save for a new addition to the family? Or add a new item to your budgeting table – a money-generating hobby? Or maybe you are a student, whose scholarship is barely enough to live on, and you want to do sports and self-education? You don’t need to be an accountant or financier to learn how to manage your money. Check your inner spender on the following points!
Contents
A Shopping List
Making a list in advance is a real working tool; without it, you risk looking at every shelf and grabbing a bath bomb, even if you only have a shower stall. Going shopping on an empty stomach is also a bad idea; there’s a 99% chance you’ll stuff too much into your cart. In addition, supermarket shelves are filled so that you will always unconsciously choose the most expensive item, so be on your guard. Buying a ready-made salad is convenient, of course, but it often costs 3-4 times as much as if you made a similar one yourself. After all, its cost includes packaging, prepacking, chef’s work, room rent, gas and electric bill, and other supermarket expenses. Sounds a bit heavy, doesn’t it? But it is!
A Mobile App to Control Your Budget
Record even the smallest of expenses. People who used these apps ended up marveling at how much money they spent on coffee, cigarettes, and other small things. $8 saved on a daily cup of latte is $240 a month. Impressive, right? Here’s a list of popular ones:
- CoinKeeper.
- Monefy.
- Money Lover.
- Money Flow.
- Moneon.
Financial managers can help you see the real picture of where your budget is spent. The main thing is to score all the components correctly.
Workouts
Sports are great! But sometimes we go to the gym not at all for ourselves, but for Instagram photos, not really enjoying the fact that we’re sweating and pulling iron, not realizing that in the end it will give us. Add to this the eternal problem with the equipment. Like if you don’t work out in pink elastic leggings and a matching gym bra, your delta muscles and glutes will take offense. If your plans don’t include a bodybuilding contest, perhaps a morning yoga class in your own apartment or a jog in the park as a cardio workout would work for you? There are tons of instructional videos on YouTube, and you’ll also perfect the most essential “muscle” – the power of self-discipline.
Then again, there are plenty of mobile apps to help you build a workout and yoga plan, and even get on a splits in 30 days, for example.
Self-education
How do you learn to save money? We bet you’ve already made unconscious online purchases of stupid training courses and trainings that were horribly useless? Add to that the stress of frustration and precious time – it doesn’t seem like a small thing to you anymore, does it? Let’s tell you a secret, all the training information is online, created, packaged and most importantly affordable.
You can learn everything: Photoshop, how to cut and sew, how to create a protected password for your 22Bet login, how to write books, how to create screenplays, how to photograph properly, how to grow plants, how to knit, and even how to put on a singing breath. Even our imagination isn’t enough to list how many terabytes of free educational information the world wide web holds!
Clothing
Clothing needs are limited to a well-defined basic closet from which images are created. Awareness is the new fashion trend, and that means only one thing: consume less. Arrange to exchange things with girlfriends, master customizing – remaking old things into new ones.
About “brand” clothing can be talked about for hours, especially for the “victims of fashion. In defense of expensive clothes, you can say that they are made from higher quality materials, and therefore will last longer in wear. This really works with expensive shoes and bags, products made of genuine leather, for example. They age nobly, and over the years become only “vintage”. But the eco-leather, despite the prefix, will crack at the first frost, and you have to go for an update. So give priority to quality over quantity, or even brand. Some well-publicized brands do not hesitate to produce knitwear, which will break when washed. Trust only your eyes!
Take Care of Your Health
Prevention is much cheaper than cure. For some reason, this simple axiom is generally unpopular. To avoid spending a lot of money on clinics, make a habit of preventive examinations in clinics, buy health insurance, then if you have an accident, the insurance will cover part or all of the treatment. It’s especially important to do this when traveling abroad, where a doctor’s call and drugs are many times more expensive than here, so take care of this in advance.
Home Cooking
As tempting as it is to dine out at a restaurant, cooking at home cuts some of the cost considerably. Replace sugary and unhealthy sodas, which will burden not only your wallet but also your gastrointestinal tract, with a compote made from dried fruit with honey. You can pour it into a special reusable water bottle made of eco-friendly plastic, so you will also contribute to the ecological attitude towards the planet.
Personal Auto
Keeping a personal car is becoming a luxury in these difficult times of financial crisis. It’s the cost of gasoline, car washing, oil changes, filters, brake pads, buying summer and winter tires that need to be “re-shined” and paying more for it. Transportation tax, parking fees, and a city dotted with video cameras. We’re sure you drive perfectly, but how can you be responsible for other drivers who have to break the rules sometimes?
Make an Agreement With Your Family
One man is not a warrior in the field. Unless you live alone. What good will it do if you tighten your belt tighter if your significant other continues to live the high life? Family budget planning is a thing that every member of the family should be involved in, even a high school kid who earns nothing. Believe me, one day of your life spent on the serious fixing of all expenses and their optimization, clearly built schedule of income and expenses will turn into happy days and accumulated funds in the future. Which you can shamelessly spend on travel, buying a house or other things important to you.
