Top 3 Money Saving Tips Everyone Can Use

With the economy still feeling sorry for itself and consumer spending still thin on the ground there has never been a better time to tighten ship and save some money. The trouble is, it’s all too easy to say you will save money but without an actionable plan, your best efforts will fall by the wayside. In recognizing this, we have decided to get some personal finance tips together to give you a good head start.

1. Spend less than you earn. This is a fairly obvious statement but it’s the absolute backbone of succeeding in avoiding debt. If your expenditure is more than your income every single month, you don’t need to be a genius to work out something needs to change. First things first, sit down and work out exactly where all your money’s going by writing down all your expenditure and don’t miss anything out. Actually, the best way to do it is by recording your spending for a month. Once you have your list, start knocking off as many as you can until you are spending less than you earn. If it means canceling your television channels, gym membership or that nice meal it has to be done because if you don’t have it, you simply can’t spend it.
2. Pay off your credit card debt. Pay them off and then cut them up into little pieces. Credit cards encourage you to spend much more than you earn and then they charge you through the nose for the pleasure. If you have outstanding credit card debt, get it paid off as soon as you can. Paying off the minimum payments isn’t enough either as it hardly covers the interest. You need to pay off as much as you can and never use them again, this also goes for store cards.
3. Start saving. Some other useful money saving tips might involve saving on your bills, saving on groceries with coupons, saving on your heating bill by winterizing your home, and saving on your water bill by using less. There are hundreds if not thousands of little things you can do right now to start saving money. The trick is to put more and more of them to use every day until it becomes a habit. The more savings you have in the bank, the more insurance you have when things go wrong. You don’t have to save a fortune either, a small amount each week will go a long way. For many, retirement might seem like light years away, but it has the tendency to sneak up on you before you know it. It would be wise to put these and other money saving tips into practice in order to be better your tomorrow.