Saving money help!

[KnxGuy MGYParticipant 19]

Hi guys.

I have never really been good at saving money, and i also don’t really understand Superannuation in Australia.

How do i take control of my money. i work full time but im not raking in alot of money, im a trolley pusher for a supermarket.

any tips or ways to cut down on food expenses?

[Solo MAN’S WisdomParticipant]

NEVER eat out.

When women lead, destruction is the destination. -- Me.

[ShineParticipant 1696]

With your weekly paycheck, pay yourself first. This simply means use your money to improve your life not someone else’s.

I found the best way to save was to open a 2nd bank account that didnt allow ATM withdrawals. Each pay cycle try to put half your income into your savings, and if you occasionally need access to it for major purchases, pay yourself from savings to spending account.

Reign in your weekly spending, look at patterns on where you are burning through cash and find ways to slow the spending.

"Society is to blame" Denton

[Anonymous 54]

See how much you can live without.

[TuneoutParticipant]

Superannuation is a way to save for your retirement. The money comes from contributions made into your super fund by your employer and, ideally, topped up by your own money. Sometimes the government will add to it through co-contributions and the low income super contribution.Jul 22, 2016

If your employer offers this,take advantage of it

esp if they match your contributions.

Lifes a bitch,but you don't have to marry one!

[Silent NoiseParticipant 211]

Manipulate centrelink.

Bring down the welfare state by doing whatever the hell you want while getting sweet gov’t money.

Live frugally by shopping at your local spud shed.

Open up a CommSec trading account and learn to invest from investors.com

Go on a low carb diet/keto with caloric restriction and you can limit your eating to live longer and live cheaper.

[clint englandParticipant 341]

Never easy but if you lock down, it’s surperising how much you can get together.

I’ve always worked from the spend a bit, save a bit. S~~~ unexepected always comes up, it’s just life but you can get there.

Especially if you put in more hours of work, so you don’t have the free time to spend it too much.

Best of luck bud.

[FrostByteParticipant 19005]

Pay yourself first!
I drop some money every week into a savings account with auto-transfer and I just ignore it.

If you rescue a damsel in distress, all you will get is a distressed damsel.

[MadmanParticipant 772]

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

[MattNYCParticipant 2329]

For me it helped to have some specific financial goals in mind. One of the first you should look at is a 6-month “emergency fund”, so if you lose your job, you’re not out on the street.

Take however much $$$ you currently spend per month, multiply by 6, and that’s your first financial goal.

@shin has a great reco here:

Shine wrote:

open a 2nd bank account that didnt allow ATM withdrawals. Each pay cycle try to put half your income into your savings

Saving 50% of your pay might be a lot if it’s your first time, but put ***something*** in that account every time you get paid. Maybe start with a target of 10% of every paycheck.

For me it’s way easier to save for a goal when i have a separate account for that purpose. Ex: I have separate accounts for emergency savings, for vacation, and for buying a new laptop when my current one takes a s~~~. I put $$$ in each of those accounts, every single month.

[FrostByteParticipant 19005]

Madman wrote:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

Nice find. I am bookmarking that in MGTOW favorites file.

If you rescue a damsel in distress, all you will get is a distressed damsel.

[MadmanParticipant 772]

I used the Money Mustache method and retired at 36.

[ResidentEvil7Participant 9544]

Whatever you have left over at the end of every month, put it aside and with each month, keep putting that remaining money into that cash stash and let it grow over time. To reduce your spending, just cut what you don’t need; eating out, dating, fancy tech and fancy toys, and the list goes on. If you can live without it, don’t get it.

But like I said whatever you have left over at the end of each month, just put it aside and don’t touch it, but let it grow over time. When you’ve been out of work for as long as me, you teach yourself how to save and how to live on less.

https://themanszone.webs.com/

[WongataaParticipant 25]

There are several methods to saving money. Granted I’m in the U.S. and not Australia so I’m sure there are some differences but what I’ve found is that figuring out what you really need and what’s just fluff is the first step. If you’re single (and I’m assuming you are). Here in the states living in a mobile home or trailer home is significantly cheaper than an apartment or a house. Second is the kind of vehicle you drive. Right now I’m running around on a $1500 scooter (brand new) that gets about 75 miles to the gallon for gas. If you get a used one I’m sure you’ll get it for 50 – 75% of that price. Phone bills are another area that many overspend on. Limit your plan and use accordingly. Same with cable television or internet. As has already been mentioned eating out is a bad idea (usually). There are occasions when eating out can be cheaper if you can use coupons or specials to get really good prices. Now if you are already in debt with a vehicle or home or other issues. Pay off the lowest debts first then shift the money you were spending there to the next lowest and so on and so forth. That will free you from debt as quickly as possible and improve your credit rating. Finally, as others have mentioned you also need to save money as well so if something happens (and it will) you aren’t in a bind. I would suggest starting at 25 – 100 dollars a month if you aren’t used to it and increase it once you’re used to not having that money to work with.

[DarkRyuParticipant 2354]

Saving money is easy. EVERY time you open your wallet, you need to ask yourself if you really NEED to spend that money right now, or if you can put it off (ideally indefinitely). Find a cheap thing that makes you happy and use that as your recreation. I like to read books. $0.29 apiece at the thrift store. When you’re done with them, list them on eBay for $5 a pop. It will take a long ass time, but they do sell. I have hundreds of books listed and sell at least 1 per day.

Don’t pay for services. Try to do it yourself. Cut your own hair and wear a hat to cover your terrible haircut.

Those monthly bills? Kill ’em. Cut cable and downgrade to the slowest internet that’s at least 8Mbps. If you’re only doing 1 thing at a time on the internet, you’ll notice NO difference between 8Mbps and 8,000,000Mbps. Most websites can only serve you speeds of around 8Mbps, so the speed of your connection beyond that is irrelevant.

What to be a really cheap bastard? T-Mobile is now offering UNLIMITED tethering at 512Kbps. It’s slow, and movies will come in like s~~~, but it’s free with your $40/month phone bill. And if you watch movies on your phone, they don’t slow it down to 512Kbps.

Take EVERY PENNY you save and PAY OFF THE DAMNED CREDIT CARDS AND OTHER DEBT! Try to get a card that has at least 1% cash back and use that for EVERYTHING. Just make sure to pay the f~~~er off each month and they’ll pay you for using it. $10 for every $1,000 you spend. F~~~ airmiles and other s~~~ unless you’re 100% sure you’re going to use it.

Live in a f~~~ing dump. Who are you trying to impress? So long as it’s not filled with druggies and gangs, who cares? Alternatively, rent a really nice house and have roommates. Back in the good old days I rented a HUGE house for $2,000/month with 4 other guys. $400/month is cheap as f~~~. The downside is you’re 5x as likely to have trouble paying the rent because all 5 of you have to come up with the rent every single month. If one of you (or more) is short, YOU have to pick up the slack or lose your rental and ruin your credit. Not a good position to be in unless you’ve already got money to fall back on.

For the long haul, buy energy saving lightbulbs. Sure they’re expensive, but over 3 years or so you’ll break even. After that it’s 100% savings.

Don’t eat out. If you don’t know how to cook or don’t want to, find the cheapest edible thing in the frozen food section that you can handle. Microwave burritos man. I eat those. $0.50 per plate of 2 burritos. Assuming you spend $5/meal and eat 3 meals per day, that’s $450/month in food. If you supplement just ONE of those 3 meals with a plate of $0.50 burritos, you save $135/month. Supplement 2 of those meals and you save $270. Buy some GOOD supplements (about $100/month) so your health doesn’t suffer.

Buy good quality used stuff, and when you’re done with it, flip it on Craigslist again. I bought a good quality table on Craigslist for $100. Really nice antique. Used it for 2 years, then flipped it for $200. I got paid $100 to use a table for 2 years. Sure it sat on Craigslist for a month, but that’s just another month I got to use a free table.

Take whatever overtime you can. Or take a second part time job. The key to saving money is to take in more than you spend. The only way you can do that is to spend less, or make more (or both!). Do both to increase your savings rate by 70% or more.

Sell whatever you don’t really NEED. Even if you only make $10 on it, that’s $10 you didn’t have before.

Drive a junk car, or bike to work. Get a cheap mechanic buddy that will work on your car for a reasonable price and who can advise you on what to buy.

DON’T PAY A CENT MORE FOR ANYTHING THAN YOU HAVE TO! Seriously, if you absolutely need something, buy it used. And if you don’t need it urgently, spend the next few weeks looking for the best and cheapest one you can find on Craigslist.

Make money any way you can. Mow lawns, pick up dog s~~~, work on a roof, whatever. The ONLY thing you have to trade for is the money you already have, stuff you already have, and YOUR TIME. The best way to make money is to trade your time because it doesn’t cost you anything except your time.

Spend every waking moment working on furthering your goals. If you just spent an hour watching TV or playing video games, that’s an hour less that you have to do something that actually MATTERS. Time is money, or rather you can use time to make money. So if you’re doing nothing, you’re losing the opportunity to make money.

Move closer to work and sell your car. Use a bike. For the rare occasions you actually need a car, call an Uber.

That’s about it, but as you can see from what I said above, saving money takes WORK. There’s a reason why wealthy people are wealthy. They don’t sit on their asses waiting for the world to come to them. They grab life by the b~~~~ and make s~~~ work.

[KnxGuy MGYParticipant 19]

Tonnes of good advice here guys thanks heaps.

One thing i have to add is i am 25 almost 26, never had a credit card and own my car. 0 debts. which by reading some posts, debts suck. so i at least have that thing going for me at least.

thanks for the help, bookmarking and copy pasting comments into notepad to pring out onto my fridge haha

cheers

[BeerParticipant 11832]

I got myself in the mind set that when I’m saving money I’m not depriving myself of things, I’m just buying passive income. Essentially if someone came up to you and said if you give me 100 dollars right now, I’ll pay you 4 dollars a year with a small cost of living increase every year for the rest of your life and any time you want your 100 dollars back you can take it, you’d be nuts not to do it. Welcome to the world of investing. The trick is you just have to realize making that deal over and over is better than spending money on stuff you don’t really need right now. Once you get there it feels like it actually gets tougher to spend money than to save it.

I don’t know the specifics of your situation…but others have given lots of good advice. Earning more and/or spending less are the only ways to increase your savings rate…it really just boils down to you wanting it bad enough to make a few changes to your life…maybe cutting back on some luxuries, maybe putting in more hours at work or hunting for a better or a second job.

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