Any idea or suggestion on how to save money effectively nowadays.?
Answer:
This is what I do.I'll take you through one of my madness ideas that works for me, oh so well...
I use Bank of America for my accounts and they are all linked on-line along with Bill Pay. This bank does a 'keep the change' program that probably saves me $250/year along with time balancing the checkbook. When I fill up on gas, I put in $40.01 into the car. Bank of America rounds the purchase up to $41.00, placing .99 cents into my savings account automatically and then I write $41.00 when balancing later. THIS ADDS UP, especially if you always buy things with your debit card, which has NO FEES with BOA. For me, its AT LEAST $250/year.
I have a Roth IRA through Bank of America investments along with a taxable account with Sharebuilder.com. They both are linked with BillPay on-line and it takes maybe 4-days maximum for my online "bill" to get into my accounts.
For me, its as simple as getting your paycheck, depositing the money, say $1000/week, and IMMEDIATELY, IMMEDIATELY pay yourself first. If you can afford to put $200/month towards your IRA, send $225. If you can set aside $25/month for your 'fun' account, send $50. YOU MUST PAY YOURSELF FIRST! Pretend its a bill that if you dont pay, you will get in trouble for it.
Then, what I just did yesterday, is when I go shopping or out for drinks, I come back home and send in extra money to one of the accounts. So I told myself before I went out, that IF I spend over $50 at the bar, that I would 'penalize' myself $25 to my sharebuilder account. Let me tell you, it works, for me at least. I send in small amounts of like $10 to these accounts or more and if you do this on top of your typical savings and "penalize" yourself by removing money from your checking account and placing it in savings, the rewards can be substantial.
So instead of having $50 taking out of my checking account, I take out $75, which I wont even pay attention to the following day, and $25 is going into an account that will make me money.
Its a strong mentallity to do this, but because you are asking how, you got it. Now you just have to follow through with it. If $25 'penality' is to much, maybe $10. Be strong about it and you wont know the difference from $25 and $35 and that account will build up FAST like mine!
Work on cutting your expenses while looking to increase your income.
Put a percentage in your bank account and don't touch it, ever. Then, we you have a good amount of money (a few thousand), invest it in something.
Use cash, and only buy whats needed.
5, Stay with it, like me
If you are a student and your parents give you a daily/weekly/monthy allowance, you can buy a piggy bank and save a portion of your allowance in it, and of course resisting the temptation to open it.
Try this Site for Ideas: http://www.realmoneyideas.com Go to
the following pages:"Cutting Expenses" & "Money Saving Ideas"
lots of great info and ideas there.
On the same Site you can also read the "Additional Income"
page as well.
Stash away a fixed amount a week and pretend it doesn't exist. It has to be an amount that you can live with, something small enough that you can still swing it even when expenses get high or you have a few unexpected expenses but not too small, coins in a jar don't cut it. For ever $25/week saved is $1300/year not including any interest or returns. The best thing to do is save in a ROTH IRA. I recommend every eligible person max that out annually. It's harder to Withdraw from the Roth than a regular account so it's good for the people who like to raid thier account and splurge.
By budgetting properly accounting for expenses and income. You can see that income does not have a 's' added to it to make
incomes. This clearly brings out why expenses have to be effectively controlled by means of proper allocation of resources and also reserving atleast 15% of the income for savings.
VR
Bank CDs are good. They give better interest rates than regular saving accounts and "force" you to keep them for a period of time.
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