How You Can Save Money This Autumn
[AD] Autumn can be an extremely expensive time of year. If your kids have just gone back to school, chances are you’ll have had to fork out a small fortune on new school shoes, uniforms, pencil cases, and lunch boxes – and if they’re older you may just have to pay out a whole lot of cash for their textbooks too. Even if you don’t have kids, it’s an expensive time of year. If you went on holiday this summer you may still be financially impacted from that, and you may also have already started saving for Christmas. If you’d like to save some money and increase your savings account, here are some tips on how you can do that.
Remember To Save First
Firstly, you need to make saving money your top priority. A lot of people wait until the end of the month and then they transfer whatever money they have leftover into their savings account. But when you get paid, you should remember that you need to pay yourself first. Transfer ten percent (or however much you’ve decided on) of your money into your savings account, pay your bills, and then work from there. If you need some extra money by the end of the month, you can always crack into that savings account, but if there are no necessities you need, you’ll be much less likely to touch it.
Look For Deals
If you’re making a big purchase, you need to make sure that you shop around. A lot of different stores will have different price amounts in an attempt to entice customers, and there are also a lot of offers around – for instance, you can find a cheap Chromecast on Latest Deals. There are also a lot of coupons that you might be able to find online or in local newspapers and magazines. Stores will do different deals at different times, so if you are able to, it’s a good idea to shop around and to get bargains while they’re there.
Learn To Meal Plan
Meal planning is an excellent and easy way to save some extra cash. It’s so easy to go grocery shopping and end up coming home with far more than you thought you’d have – and then it’s easy to forget about that food before accidentally letting it rot in your crisper and having to throw it out. To prevent wasting this money, decide at the start of the week what you’re going to have for every mealtime. Breakfast may not be so important, but lunch and dinner can be easily planned in order to save money and utilise leftovers. This is especially important if you find that you’re spending far too much money on buying lunch every day. If you make your lunch at home, or if you batch cook, you’ll save a lot of money.
Stop Using Your Cards
Using your cards to buy everything makes it extremely easy to spend way too much money. And why exactly is that? It’s because using cards makes it feel as though you aren’t actually spending anything because you can’t see the money leave your bank account. If you find that this is an issue for you, you could consider withdrawing money from your bank account at the start of each week. Paying with cash instead of using your card will make you much more aware of how much you’re spending, thereby leading you to spend a whole lot less.
Quit Your Impulse Purchases
It can be so easy to buy things that you don’t really need. You might see a shirt you kind of like, a book that looks pretty interesting, an ornament that might look cool on your mantelpiece – and then moments later you find yourself plunking down your credit card and buying it. And let’s face it: you work hard and it’s okay to treat yourself every once in a while. But if impulse purchases have become a habit for you, it’s important to break that. Start to implement the one week rule: if you still want the item in a week, go back to buy it. You may be surprised at how many potential impulse purchases you forget about completely.
Turn Off Your Lights
Finally, a really easy way to save some money on your bills is by simply being more careful with electricity. Turn off your lights when you leave the room, keep your heating on a timer so it isn’t on all day, don’t leave electrical items on standby. When your lights burn out, replace them with eco-efficient bulbs – they’re great for the environment and your bank account.
Saving money doesn’t have to be boring or painful – these tips should help you save much more cash.
