Finance: 5 tips to make saving money easier

A lot of restraint is needed if you plan on reaching your saving goals.

Saving for a rainy day is not as easy as it sounds, especially depending on the level of your income.

Saving is hard, especially when you'll have immediate needs or desires that'll tempt you to want to splurge so badly.

This is why it's important to develop a strong sense of restraint and constant planning to successfully save for whatever reason you decide you want to save for.

Here are a few tips on how to make saving money a little easier:

1. Keep a strict budget

One of the most essential components of saving is mapping out a financial plan to determine how much you have to really spend for a determined timeframe.

It helps you to decide how much you actually need from your earnings and how much you can afford to squirrel away without jeopardizing your actual needs.

2. Cut down on non-essential expenses

There's no harm in indulging in the occasional luxury that you feel like you deserve, but if you're serious about saving, you'll have to take a long hard look at yourself and decide on some things you don't necessarily depend on to get by.

When this happens, you'll most probably realise you're spending a lot of money on a lot of things that you can reasonably do without.

3. Control your spending impulse

It's not just enough to recognise the pattern of spending that's taking a chunk out of your expenses, you have to be ready to put in the work to make sure you don't relapse into spending on things you shouldn't necessarily do.

It's a hard practice, especially if it's a habitual thing that you've had to put a stop to, so you'd really have to exercise a lot of restraint to make sure you don't fall into that trap that's going to harm saving money.

To save successfully, you have to build up the fortitude to cut out expensive addictions.

4. Keep the money out of reach

When all is said and done, it's still incredibly difficult to suddenly get into a saving mode that you don't break out of sometimes.

So, keeping your savings out of reach could be a really smart plan to stop you from dipping into it from time to time and wrecking it over time.

You could do this by setting up a separate bank account where your stipulated amount is saved directly into. This must be an account that it must take a considerable amount of effort to get access to.

You can't spend impulsively if you have to jump through a few hoops to get to the money. At the least, it gives you a little time to really think about what you’re doing.

5. Set saving goals

Motivation is a very good ingredient to any sort of plan you could have about anything, so it definitely doesn't hurt to have that for saving money. Set reasonable goals that helps keep you on the straight and narrow.

Ultimately, the most important thing to do when you're saving is to master your cash flow and spending pattern and devise the best plan to save and religiously stick to it until you reach your financial goal, whatever that is.

SOURCE - PULSE.NG posted by Campus94