Tips For Saving and Living on a Tight Budget
Tips for saving is what many look forward to. Many a times living on a tight budget becomes a reality for most Americans. It’s a struggle working hard every day only to realize at the end of the month that instead of saving money you are sliding into debt. Despite what you may think with careful planning you can reverse this frightening trend and start saving money. To accomplish this you are going to have to look at where your money is going, make a budget and stick to it. Many people cringe when they hear the word “budget” or tips for saving. What comes to mind is scrapping pennies together, eating top roman noodles for breakfast & recycling cans. But in reality living on a budget is a lot easier than that and can even be more enjoyable than your current lifestyle.
Living on a Tight Budget
These tips for saving are a guideline that will show you the way to living comfortably on a tight budget.
Tip #1: Create a Budget
This may seem like a no brainer tips for saving but a shocking amount of people are guilty of not doing this. Without a set outline of all your expenses & how much you are actually making you are doomed to spend more than you should every month. While most people dread sitting down and confronting their finances it’s essential for making any type of progress.
Find out exactly how much you spend on lodging, food, transportation & leisure every month. Now figure out how much you take home every month after taxes. If you are starting to plan a bank robbery after looking at the disparities in your budget keep reading this list! You are not spending your money wisely and that’s why you are so far off of your target amount. With the adjustments featured in this list you are more than capable of cutting your spending drastically and saving money.
Tip #2: Prioritize Your Life
What makes you happy? Do you enjoy taking your family out once week or do you want to save up for a vacation? Figure out what really matters to you & then realize tips for saving, what other activities are wasteful indulgences. Always keep your focus on nourishing your core ideals and cut everything else out. Owning a flat screen TV or spending money on video games are not wise choices for saving money.
In fact if you are going to change your life the first step is turning off the TV, getting up off the couch & making things happen. Don’t try to escape reality, you need to confront this head on. The hours you waste in front of the TV could easily allow you to take on a second job or learn a new skill that will earn you money.
Tip #3: Learn How to Cook
This will save you financially on top of improving your health. Eating out every day is costly & unhealthy. The average American family of four spends $770 a month on food, don’t be one of them. Learning to cook, tips for saving, and learning how to buy food is crucial to getting yourself on the right track. Even if you feel lost in the kitchen you can easily learn how to cook by looking up one of the thousands of cooking videos on YouTube.
Next you need to start buying food in a wise manner. Use sites like CouponCabin.com and Coupons.com to get the best deals in the store. Don’t buy fancy individual name brand items, buy nonperishable items in bulk. Stock up on beans, rice, flour, pasta, nuts, frozen meat and canned food once a month. Then buy perishable items like vegetables, eggs, cheese &fruit every two weeks. Before you know it you will have it down to a science.
Tip #4: Keep Yourself Busy & Happy
Cooking everyday & always thinking about finances can take its toll on you and your family. If you aren’t careful you can deprive yourself to the point where you go out on a spending binge. Find cheap deals on fun activities with sites like Frugalista, Woot or Clark Howard’s tips.
Treat yourself every once in a while and eat out without going over your budget by using Groupon, LivingSocial & Scoutmob to get special deals. Boredom is your biggest enemy, find ways to keep yourself busy by doing things that will help you grow. Learn a new skill or take up a second job. Find new ways to enjoy yourself. In the end you will realize that the bulk of your expenses can easily by avoided simply by learning how to moderate and use deals to enjoy yourself wisely.
Tip #5: Make a wishlist but avoid buying
When on a tight budget, do make a wishlist of things that you wish to buy and put it on hold for days when you can really afford them. Even you can make your wishlist at any online store like Amazon and store it in your wishlist cart. No harm. When you don’t have much money in the bank, you have no choice but to stop impulse buying and really think deeply about every optional extra purchase.
Wishlists are important in tight budget especially when it comes to clothing and gifts, Wishlist is the best choice for many in tight budget..
Keeping wishlists helps take the urgency out of your purchasing decisions.
Tip #6: Automate your savings
Automate as much as possible so the money you’ve allocated for a specific purpose gets there with minimal effort on your part. An accountability partner or online support group can help, so that you’re held accountable for choices that blow the budget.
Revisit your budget as needed. Your income, expenses and priorities will change over time. Adjust your budget accordingly, but always have one.
Tip #7: Use 50/30/20 rule
Your needs should cover about 50% of your after-tax income thus should include:
- Groceries
- Housing
- Basic utilities
- Transportation
- Insurance
- Minimum loan payments. Anything beyond the minimum goes into the savings and debt repayment category
- Child care or other expenses you need so you can work
If your absolute essentials overshoot the 50% mark, you may need to dip into the ‘wants’ portion of your budget for a while. If your absolute essentials overshoot the 50% mark, you may need to dip into the “wants” portion of your budget for a while. It’s not the end of the world, but you’ll have to adjust your spending.
Even if your necessities fall under the 50% cap, revisiting these fixed expenses occasionally is smart. You may find a better cell phone plan, an opportunity to refinance your mortgage or less expensive car insurance.
Then leave 30% of your income for wants. In general, though, needs are essential for you to live and work. Typical wants include dinners out, gifts, travel and entertainment.
It’s not always easy to decide. Is a gym membership a want or a need? How about organic groceries? Decisions vary from person to person. If you’re eager to get out of debt as fast as you can, you may decide your wants can wait until you have some savings or your debts are under control. But your budget shouldn’t be so austere that you can never buy anything just for fun.
Next have 20% of your income to savings and debt repayment after-tax income to put something away for the unexpected, save for the future and pay off debt.
Tip #8: Maintain the budget
If planning budget is important factor, so is the maintain of your budget. By maintaining it means you need to stick to the budget plan and may not get it disbalanced by spending more than the set budget. Sometimes things are not in your hands and due to any natural cause like a sudden disease or emergency your budget often gets disbalanced. For this to avoid the best rule is to save some money on say extras and maintain the budget even on bad times. Remember a penny saved is penny earned.
Tip #9: Invest a small amount monthly
This is also a healthy saving and budgeting trick. Keep aside some money say $1 – $10 each month and save it in your bank as an investment. After year just calculate how many dollars are saved. Such kind of saving comes handy in any emergency situation, maintaining a healthy budget as well as over the years you can gain a lump sum of money for your needs or further investment. Even a $1 dropped in your piggy bank at home does the trick to save money.
Tip #10: Play slots and games for free
Your budget is tight and you have the crave to play real money games or slots. The best option tips for saving, is play at online casinos or online poker sites for free keeping to your games budget.
But, somehow if you feel like you are missing out on some big jackpots and prizes that other games sites are offering. You decided to check out some more new games sites. You joined and again played the free games bonus. You signed up for the newsletters to keep up on the latest games promotions. The problem is that betting in the original sites that you checked out and the new sites that you joined you you are getting more than 10 emails everyday promoting the latest contest or bonus. You didn’t expect this.
You are actually just hoping to get an email now and again when something big was going on. After a couple of weeks and a couple hundred emails you decided this was just getting annoying. You unsubscribed to all of the games newsletters and found a great online games site that has all the latest offers and promotions so that you don’t bombarded with offers. You now check in with that site once or twice a week to see if there is anything exceptional and you can also check the games or online casino reviews for more details on these sites and the best places to play games.
So now after six months you are still very happy with the original games site that you have chosen. You are very loyal to that games online casino site, but you do keep your eyes open for some games promotions that are too big to avoid. You have played at a few different sites when there is a huge jackpot, a new car, a trip or some other amazing offer. It is kind of like playing the lotto. You play games games if there is a big jackpot, but most of the time you stick with the regular site that is familiar, friendly and gives them great value for their games dollar and they offer their favorite online games games.
If you are to play games on a budget than you always looking for tips for saving and opportunities to play games for free and get the best bang for your games buck. You all know that games deposit bonuses are one of the best ways to stretch your games budget. All you need do to enjoy these amazing bonuses is to open a games account at your favorite gaming casinos online, make a real money deposit and you can immediately start taking advantage of these generous games bonuses.
With this extra funding you will now have an even better chance of winning big. If that is not enough there is an even better bonus on offer at most online games sites, no deposit bonuses. This is free money for you to play games with and it is a big part of the best games deals.
The amount of free money that online casinos offers will vary from site to site. Some games casino sites offer free bonuses in the form of no deposit bonus or games bonuses, while others offer free games money. The most important thing to check the conditions of each no deposit bonus at each online casinos. This will tell you whether or not you can win real money or you can just play for fun. Regardless, no deposit bonuses, a good way for you to know the games software and play online games without risking your own money.
Try these wonderful tips for saving to save money and do your home budgeting each month and see the difference. Do share what kind of method do you adopt to save money and have a good budget of your monthly income.