Best Saving Strategies To Practice

It’s a natural phenomenon for us to save. Human nature dictates that we save for the rainy days, and it’s how we survived for such a long time despite not having the most imposing of physical figures in the animal kingdom. In other words, we have the cognitive ability to think for the long term, and that is how we became the apex species on this planet. We’ve learned to sacrifice a bit of comfort for today in the hopes of a big return in the future. We’ve done this with food, plants, relationships, and, nowadays, money.

Since the world is run by money, learning how to save it will surely bring you great deals of ease and security in the long run. There are many ways to save money other than simply putting it away in a piggy bank. You could even look up Southwest credit card offers, rack up points without paying too much of a fee, and use your points to pay for things. It’s a form of saving, as you’ve taken your time and resources to allot it to something before yielding a positive return.

• Set your goals. What put a man on the moon was the goal of humanity to go outside, explore, and reach the stars. Setting up a goal is not merely a lofty aspiration that would be said for the fanciness of it, but it gives you a clear objective to reach for. Even if everyone is different in trying to achieve their goals, what matters most is that they have a direction and a purpose. This is the same when it comes to saving money. Financially speaking, setting up financial goals will lead you to higher chances of achieving something rather than aimlessly wandering around.

Have you ever heard of the SMART principle? It’s essentially how your financial goals should look like. They have to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bounded. Let’s put that into perspective. Say you want to save up money. You’ve set yourself to save 10,000$ by the end of the year. It’s specific enough, your time aspect is spot on, and it’s a measurable goal. 

The next question would be: given your current situation, is saving 10 thousand dollars an attainable goal? Is it realistic? Are you struggling with your finances at the moment, and you’re living from paycheck to paycheck? Or do you have the luxury of putting aside money every payday? Consider all of these, and your goal would likely save you a lot of money in the future.

• Live below what you can afford. This doesn’t mean that you should cheap out on everything. However, the best way to save is to always live below your means. It’s the most effective and least risky way to save money, and almost everyone can do it. The way the world is constructed in the modern era is that it’s very easy to spend your money. Capitalist systems have everyone by their hands, and everyone is always looking to buy the latest iPhone or the newest TV. This is exaggerated by the fact that you could always take out a credit card loan and buy something you couldn’t afford in the first place. 

Even if you could afford something, always buying things that leave you empty-handed afterward isn’t a good idea. Living below your means also doesn’t have to be uncomfortable and frugal. You just have to learn how to be satisfied with what you already have and don’t engage in things whenever what you have still works.

Smartphones nowadays get refreshed and upgraded every year. However, realistically speaking, a good smartphone has five years’ worth of updates. It doesn’t break down until about 5-7 years, yet everyone is buying new versions of them every year or so. This is just one of the avenues by which you could save and live below your means.