For anyone parting with their crisp fresh leaves and spending too much money these days and looking for some solid savings advice, I’ve compiled these 5 top tips to help you save some money:
- Stop smoking. Smoking a pack a day? In South Africa, that’s easily R16 – R20 a day, or about R7,300 a year, you can put that straight into your saving’s account and not to mention what you’re going to save on medical bills if your health’s deteriorating badly because of your habit.
- Stay at home. Entertainment spending can quickly eat through the best-planned budgets. Consider going to your local library for movies, music and of course books. Don’t eat out as much. Have a crack at cutting your spending in both these area’s and I guarantee a few extra thousand bucks in the bank after a year or so.
- Cut your credit cards up. Before you do this, build up an emergency fund to help with most unexpected expenses. Credit card’s are obviously useful but paying the minimum amounts will only keep you in debt for years. I’m not one for too many statistics and figures but if you just wait till you’ve saved enough money to buy what it is you want then you can eliminate your interest payments completely.
- Hold the mother of all garage sales. Check all your cupboards, the garage etc and pull out all the stuff you don’t use. If you haven’t used it in six months, there’s a good chance you don’t need it. There’s a lot of hidden costs in too much stuff and you may be able to hold a mother of a garage sale to rake in some decent extra money. If you don’t have a garage, use a friends!
- Cut down on your driving. This one’s not possible for everyone but a real money saver if you can do it. Car-pooling, public transport, it’s all going to save you money on petrol, and maintenance costs. If you live in the city, consider taking a drastic approach and get rid of your car if you can. Get yourself a bicycle, take the bus, the train or invest in a cool skateboard…. LOL.
If you’re really ambitious and follow all the 5 money saving tips above then you’re looking at quite a large sum of money saved over the next year or so.