A Guide to Saving Money – Planning a Budget
by Balkish Rosly
Here at SaveMoney.my, we’re all about saving money for rainy days. But if you feel like it’s not easy and can take almost superhuman abilities, don’t fret! We’re here to show you that a simple piggy bank (or savings account) and a few money saving tips are enough to turn even the biggest spendaholic into a super saver!
Just HOW exactly can we even afford to save, with the current price hike on groceries, petrol consumption, bills and loan payments, and not forgetting the essential de-stressing splurges that we just have to make every once in a while?
Fear not, MoneySavers, because we’re here with some tips and tricks to get your savings going! For those who have never saved up or are incapable of keeping a savings jar, read on to find the steps on how you can start your journey (and keep it in the account this time).
Before you even start saving, you need to assess how much you can afford to set aside every month. First timers or even regular savers (like the writer of this post) can sometimes get a little over excited at the thought of becoming more “financially secure” and tend to turn a huge portion of their income into savings. That is not a bad thing, of course! But being flat out “broke” in the middle of the month with no means of paying for food and petrol without having to dip into that pre-arranged savings is hardly convenient as well.
There are three ways to go about it, but which one fits you the most? Well, it all depends on your Lazy-O-Meter level, either Low, Medium or High.
Obviously if your level is Low and you’re willing to put in a bit more effort into saving money, that’s great, and here are our tips for you:
Do a Complete Budget
Housing, car payment, TV, and Internet bill, Lois Lane’s birthday present… keeping a budget is a great way to determine your spending pattern. A complete budget, quite simply, is a summary of all your income and expenditures, done with the purpose of seeing whether one is larger than the other.
The purpose of doing a budget is to help take control of the areas of spending and actively manage your own personal ‘profit-and-loss’ statement, and know what you can and cannot afford to spend. This allows you to prioritise your spending according to your means, and find out how much savings you can make in a month!
Can’t stick to a budget? Find your Kryptonite and bury it.
So you’ve jotted down every single payment down to a tee, and according to the budget sheet, you even have an extra RM200 to spend. So why are you still coming up short and sabotaging your savings at the end of the month? Spendaholics, it is time to get gritty: Get a small notebook and start a daily spending journal. After a week or so, you will start to make sense of your own spending pattern that will hopefully help you get back in line with your budget (and help your savings grow!).
*Balkish Rosly is an Investigative Journalist of SaveMoney.my, an online consumer advice portal which aims to help Malaysians save money through smart (and most of the time painless) savings in their daily banking, technology, and lifestyle spending habits.
