Eye-Opening Money Saving Tips That Only Smart People Knows

Be smart and save money!

From past 5 years I have shared various tricks that will help you to make money online and I tips to save money when you are working as a blogger. Now It’s high time that you should know those money-saving tips which are making rich richer and tips which are not being followed by you which is causing you to lose money. I follow many of these tips to save money for myself and before I share this money-saving treasure for you, do refer to these earlier articles for bloggers to save money:

I’m strong believer of two of my favourite quotes:

“Money saved is money earned” and “Time is money“, for the later one Srikanth have shared tips that will help you to save time and in return make more money. You can read those tested and proven tips over here. In this guide I will be sharing things which are proven to work and will help you to get rid of your over expenditure habit and save a good deal of money by the end. You might fail few times but you will eventually succeed if you keep trying. Your money spending habits was not formed on one day and to change the habit, you need to be consistent. Here we go:

How Others are saving money to become rich:

For some being rich is having a big house, big car and a big bank balance. If you are wondering if you are rich or not, ask yourself: Right now do you have more of what you used to have last month. If answer is yes, you are on right track and if answer is no, it’s time for you to get into introspection mode and look at the habits which is making you lose more than gaining. Alright here I share the tips which I usually follow and help me to save money.

Avoid plastic money less and use real money more:

When ever I go shopping to a mall I usually use my credit card or debit card (Plastic money) to pay my bills and it hardly affect me if the bill is low or above average. As long as I was not giving away the real money, I had nothing to worry about. This also changed my habit of buying non-essential stuff and I end up spending more than I should have. From last few months I tend to carry cash with me while going for shopping and I set a budget for myself on how much I will be spending. This way I focus only on stuff which I meant to buy and giving away hard cash is harder than swiping your card to pay the bills.

Save electricity and save money:

This one little change made me save more money than I ever thought of. I was a reluctant person when it comes to switching off the tube light, turning off the TV or exhaust fan or even my Wi-Fi router when I’m not using or going out. I was paying over 5000INR every month as my electricity bill which is too much for a single person living in a flat. I started practicing shutting down all electrical equipment when not in use or not needed, and that cut down my bill close to 3000 INR. Which was a saving of almost 2000 INR/month ($40). I’m doing this from last 3 months and my total saving is 6000 INR, and lets do a quick calculation on saving by the end of the month:

2000*12 (INR) = 24000 INR ($400 Approx).

It may not be a big amount for you but for me this amount is pretty huge. It’s a saving that is worth making and will make a hell lot of difference by the end of your financial year.

Fixed deposit instead of keeping money in saving account:

I’m not a finance guy and terms like mutual investment and other saving stuff scares me due to my lack of information. But there is no excuse of me being illiterate on Finance and not saving money. Lately I have discovered few things which helped me to earn more interest on money and make sure that I don’t have extra money lying in my bank account. I started putting a majority of my money into fixed deposit instead of keeping them into saving account. A saving account usually pays 4% as interest rate and fixed deposit pays close to 8.75% interest rate.

What I do is; I keep essential money and a bit of extra into my saving account and put rest of my money into fixed deposit. At times I also spend a fixed set of amount into risk-free investment policies which pays me anything between 11-33% interest rate. These days all of you have internet banking and to open a fixed deposit you don’t need anybody help. You can log into your bank net banking account right now and deposit some amount in fixed deposit. Check your bank interest rate for different tenure of FD’s and pick one which fits your need. Even the amount is as low as just 10000 INR, it will make a huge different by the end of year. You can start with 20% of your income every month and you will notice a considerable amount of saving eventually.

Avoid Buy 3 get one free:

How many times you went out for shopping and get the deals like “Buy 2 get one free” or something similar and you can’t resist your temptation to miss the offer. Now think again, is there even a single time you haven’t seen such deals when you are out for shopping? Before you buy one extra stuff to get one free stuff, ask yourself; do you really need that extra stuff.

You went to buy one T-Shirt and ended up getting 3 at the price of 2, but do you really needed that 2 of those extra T-Shirt. “Wait we have more for you” is a proven psychological thinking which makes marketers earn more and make you lose more. More over you ended up accumulating those stuff which you don’t even need now. If you have this habit of buying extra for free stuff, It’s time to change it. Even if the amount is too less to pay for that free stuff which you might not need, don’t buy it!

Your mobile phone usage:

Best way to save money is by looking to those things which indirectly cost you. For example, mobile phone is an essential and you end up buying that unlimited data package, a post-paid monthly plan and so on to keep your mobile phone always packed up. I used to be a post-paid user earlier and one thing which I hated being a Post-paid mobile user is, I end up not keeping a track of my usage. By the end of the month, I had to pay my bills and just forget about it. From last 5 years I’m a Pre-paid user and it was the best thing that happened to my mobile expenditure. Now I have to top-up mobile phone when ever the bill is low, and I don’t have to unnecessarily pay for monthly bills. This rule may not apply to those who have huge mobile usage, but for a person like me and you this can be a big difference. Now a days topping up mobile credit is easy with the help of apps ( I use PayTM app ) and more over instead of buying unlimited data plan or high-end data plan, buy one which you need. You are the only person who knows about your usage and even if you save 500 INR ($10) a month on your mobile phone, you will end up saving 12000INR ($120) by the end of month.

Use Cashback program for shopping online:

When even I shop online, I search for discount coupon and pat myself for saving some money. Recently when I got to know about cash back program like Cashkaro which not only providediscount-coupons but also give cash back which you can actually get into your bank account. Last time I got cash-back of 15 INR along with discount coupon of 20% on my Pizza order. Was it a big saving? For me it was, and you need to ask yourself if it’s worth saving that extra penny without any extra work?

Look for for cash back program in your country and use it when ever shopping online. Most of these cash-back programs provide discount coupons too, so you end to saving a huge deal when shopping online.

Cut down on smoking and reward yourself:

Are you a smoker who is trying hard to quit smoking, you must be knowing the dilemma of relapse. I have been a regular smoker since 2004 and it’s an addiction which is hard to let go of. I tried quitting multiple times and I failed the same several times. Eventually I came up with this strategy which not only helped me to cut down considerably on my smoking habit but also worked out as money-saving tip for me. Here is what I did:

Instead of buying complete package of smoke, I buy only 2-3 at a time.
Every time I get the urge of smoking which I suppress, I put the cost of smoke into my money-box.

This reward system of not only helped me to cut down on smoking habits, but it also helped in saving considerable amount of money. If you have other habits like Alcohol or drugs, you can try using the same reward mechanism and notice the difference with this little steps in coming days.

Saving money is not a cheap habit but it’s a smart way to make more money. It’s a way to spend your hard-earned money on things that matter. Well these are my secret money saving tips which are working for me, and it will work for you too. I’m sure you must having your own tips for saving money which I would love to read about it in comments.

Share this post with others and let them know about these little tricks to save money and they would thank you at the end.

TechSeeks

Monday, September 8, 2014