I Suck at Saving Money
If you suck at saving money and feel like a spender without control, then you need to define your budget, your wants, and your needs and make a new organization in your life. If you feel useless, it is a sign that you lack discipline.
You want to save money, but you cannot do it normally as others do, and you feel it’s useless. Then you need to consult this matter with yourself first.
The major flaw in saving money is the person who keeps on spending, which might have become their strong habit. There are many ways to make money, even though there are double as many ways to save your money. If you do not know how to save money and are not getting the nerve to do so, these might be the reasons behind it.
Why can’t I save money?
You can not save money because of the following reasons:
First, you have got no budget.
The first reason is that you got no budget. You earn and spend without taking notice of anything. Those who spend blindly are because they have no budget set for their commodities. Hence, they spend on the high price of items without looking for the alternates of those products at the lower prices because they have no idea how they need to spend money, so they are spending blindly, and in the middle of the month, they have no savings and no extra money to spend is left. Yes, not everyone has this situation, but many go through this every month.
So if you want to keep up with the money and budget and want to save more or even some of the money, the first thing you need to do is to make a budget, a plan on which you will work, and adjust the commodities on which you need to spend. For example, set a maximum budget while leaving a portion of savings and took full advantage to make the fixing and heavy-duty works and take the groceries and all.
The next month onwards makes the budget plan with the minimum level of spending and a high level of savings. Then spend them according to it. This will not only make you save more but also allow you to change your habit of “not saving” and “only sending” money at all times.
You think you deserve everything.
This is the worst reason one could have in order not to save any money from their income. No doubt that people cannot save money if they keep on thinking that what they earn is only to spend on them and I was one of them too, it is like that I always thought that if I get to earn someday, I will be spending on clothes and new trendy things. I will always be eating out with friends, and whatever I like, I will get them delivered.
Like it was a dream come true for me after I got the job. After that, spending so much on the things I like, my feelings are not satisfied with the materials, so I stopped looking for accessories and trendy clothes every month. Every day I make myself realize that the money I spent on clothes that are hanged in my closet is just a waste of money; if I could save them, I would be able to buy something more of the value like I could have my own car or I could travel to some other state as well. But this never happened because I was too careless to take care of where I am spending my money and where it should be spent.
You confuse “wants” with “needs.”
If you cannot make savings, the other possible reason behind your no saving attitude is to mix the concept of wants with needs. You are not able to understand what the needs and wants are for you.
For a better understanding of needs and wants, here is a brief concept: needs are necessary to your survival and life, and the opposite is the wants that are totally what you desire for yourself. To make a living, you need to understand that you should be spending more on the needs and less on the wants. When you cannot make the difference between your needs and wants, you will be spending more on both of them.
For the easy note, you can take paper and a pen and write down what your needs are for the month and what would be the wants like entertainment or having fun with friends or eating outside and make the compromises or you can spend less on them.
You think you will have time to save later.
The other reason behind not saving you is that you think you will save next month in the next month. When you are unwilling to savings today, you will be unwilling tomorrow. Make a decision today; there is no tomorrow. The emergency period of time is not going to tell you before coming. One needs to prepare beforehand.
Thinking that little amounts will not be sufficient for saving.
I suppose you might be wrong because you can make a million one day by collecting single pennies. So never ignore the value of pennies, even if you have them.
Saving less is still the better option to save nothing. The less you save in the start, the more you will be satisfied that it takes only some of the money to make savings, not much. Then in the next month, you can save more and more. You will develop this habit of savings gradually.
Thinking that your salary is low to save from it
You don’t save somehow, maybe because your salary is meager to save from it, though, but this is not what it’s like. You can always make the savings from what you earn. You need to make the portions of your income like it is in the book of: “The richest man in Babylon.”
He explained how he became the richest man of Babylon, so he saved from the money he earned. And divided the income into different portions. The one portion was the one that he gives to himself. So at the end of the year or after 6 months, you will have that portion of savings out. And you will be amazed by looking at the amount you have saved. Then you can invest them in the business or somewhere in which you have interest but make sure that you know the business then invest theirs.
You believe you have lots of time to pay off your debt.
While having the debts, you cannot even save because you have to pay off your debt first, so to save for yourself, you need to get rid of the debt; for this, you have to plan how you can pay off your debt. For example, if it is a huge amount, you can sell something and pay off your debt.
If it is not possible, you can take a big amount of your income and invest it in some business. Gradually you will generate some extra money from the profit of that business. But make sure that the business in which you are going to spend money should be the legal one and should be the one you know every detail about. By this, not only can you make more money, but you can save too and pay off your debt as well. There are many ways to earn extra money to have an easy and soft cushion while paying off your debt.
For example, in my previous article, I have discussed how you can make some extra money. Like you can earn through online working, or you can work as a part-timer after your job.
You’re paying for those of your entertainment which you can’t afford it.
You cannot save if you pay for those commodities that you cannot afford on a ground basis. For example, entertainment like Netflix or TV cable or paying online for movies can cause major damage to your saving attitude when you are addicted or got habitual of paying for them. You do not even get the time to watch them according to the payment you have paid for them, then you are totally wasting your money and could not even saving anything.
You need to understand that these commodities are a wastage of money, not the following trend for saving behavior. By cutting these things, you can have an actual saving amount for the valuable things like going on vacations with your entire family worth it.
You can even pay your debt from that money or buy your own house if you do not have it yet. You can buy or spend money on many things that would be worthy of your effort and money, unlike spending money on paying for the channels or TV cable, etc.
You are treating your credit cards as your income.
The biggest issue you have is you’re spending on your credit cards. You think credit cards are the income you have earned. However, you forget that buying from credit cards is the money you are borrowing from banks through credit cards, and then on the coming of your income, your money will be gone to the bank before you could even withdraw them to use them for yourself.
So where is the portion for saving is?? It’s all gone; you will be left with the amount necessary that is only enough for the needs of yours, and you could not save from them.
So to save and save more, you need to stop using your credit cards. That is not your money, use from the money you are earning so you will have the budget plan in your mind, and in the month, you will not be worried about less income because of the cutting from banks.
Not saving because others are not saving, so it’s fine if you do too.
This is a natural behavior of humans, if you have an influential friend or are spending more time with your friends, you are ultimately following them, or maybe they are following you. So in the same case, when you see those paying more for less valuable things or spending more money on entertainment and so and so, you are doing the same thing because they are doing this.
They are delaying their debt so are you, but you never know what they have for them. Maybe they have backup plans for some emergency, but not you. It is the reality people never show their all assets, so they never trust anyone blindly. So stop making foolish assumptions like if so and so have not paid their debt, so will you, and if they are spending more, you will spend more too.
Bought something in installments.
The other reason is that you have bought something in installments. How and why installments are not supporting you in your income management. Let us take some examples to explain it quite easily, for example, you have bought a car of 90 some thousand dollars, just as an example. You bought it on 20 months of installments, with a 2 percent markup or interest. After the 20 months of installments, you would have to pay the extra money. Because on installments, you were paying the markup in the installment’s money. So the culprit in making you lose all your money without saving anything is the car you have bought in installments.
For saving money, never buy anything in installments. Otherwise, you will be paying the higher prices for the long-term periods that will keep you engaged in the money of installments, and you will not save anything.
How to become a saver, not a spender?
To become a saver and not a spender, you need to find your triggers, define important things in your life, and define your needs and wants. Discipline in saving and excellent organization are the most important things in the saving process.
Although you are might be in the above situations, there is always a way to make the changes. You can work on the different habits, like changing your spending behavior, eating out behavior, or stopping spending on expensive entertainment.
Those who can control their feelings and spending behaviors can amend their budget plans and go for savings. The best ultimate way for saving is to buy a piggy locker. To be frank and openly, I also purchased one when I started making money and realized that I need to save too. Then whenever I got cash, I blindly put the amount in that piggy locker, and though I spend more of my time outside working on the job and after that, I do some part-time and after reaching home, I spend some of my time doing house chores and working on my study thesis. So I barely forget to take a look in my piggy locker though I do remind myself to put all the cash that is remaining of the day in the piggy locker.
This was the first time I made the addition of piggy lockers in my life and made it my routine duty to put money in them, like to feed that locker with money, whether less or more, I have to put in it after the day. While doing this at the start, I realized that this is merging into my habit, and I started getting eager to put money in that piggy locker. After a month or two, it finally helped me change my habits and make some savings.
Since then, I started making monthly budgets and spending according to the budget while saving quite a good amount. You can be doing this while making money you can save too without taking it on a serious level like making budgets and all; just for taking the start normally, buy a cute piggy locker so that it will keep on catching your eyes. You will not forget to feed that piggy locker, and eventually, you will feel that you are developing the habit of savings. Then taking your savings attitude to the next level will be the wise thing. Then, you can make a budget of your choice and spend less and save more will be your benefit option.
Many people say that you only live once, but I must say that if you rightfully live this life, then this one is enough too. Therefore, think wisely before spending your money because this money is what you have gained after spending so much time and effort; while spending on other things, it’s better to help others with our money, who need them most.
After leaving Wells Fargo Bank in 2014, Daniel began a career as a finance consultant, advising companies and individuals on economic policy, labor relations, and financial management.
At Promtfinance.com, Daniel writes about personal finance topics, value estimation, budgeting strategies, retirement planning, and portfolio diversification.
Read more on Daniel Smith's biography page.
Contact Daniel: daniel@promtfinance.com