Learning how to save.

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Hey guys,

This topic has being bugging me alot.

I live at home and after tax I only manage to save 52% of my salary.

Is this good? average or bad?

It bugs me that alot of my salary goes into car parking and my fuel (3.5 litre engine)

So the question I have for you guys is where do you guys stay? At home? Own home? Girl friends place? And how much of your salary do you guys save after tax.

 

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I was once told that you should save 10% of everything you earn.

I don't, but I was told to.

 

I'd say that 52% is pretty good. I don't save anything myself as I'm 2 months away from finally getting out of debts.

I'd say you're doing pretty well, saving 52% of your salary.

 

you know like 30 to 40 percent of what I make goes into food.

I am heavily obsessed I cannot stop eating food, any ideas how to tackle this?

 

I live at home, but I pay my parents about 15% of my take home salary, but then that includes all food and bills.

On average I save about 62-67% (inlcuding the now pitiful interest on bank accounts) of what I take home on a yearly basis. However I have a small car (Corsa), live 7 mins from work, and I don't pay parking at work. I do have a good standard of living, but I am also as tight as a duck's arse.

 

save as much as you can but also still do the things you want. once you move out and get a mortgage you will likely have less spare money. when i lived at home i managed to save 2/3 of my wages. i was saving to pay for my masters so the whole lot got spent.

 

As far as food goes, they keep saying about downgrading one brand:

so for example, if you buy the finest range, go for the normal range. If you go for the normal range, go for the value range. If you go for the value range, get it out of the skip

If you find then that you can live with the cheaper version, stick with it. If you can't, change back up. You would find that some things are perfectly acceptable though.

Other helpful ones are ordering online, as you wont make as many impulse purchases, or setting a budget / writing a shopping list, and planning your meals for less wastage.

 

I do this. I would recommend sites such as topcashback to get free money for normal shopping online (I have earned £200). You can also collect nectar points from Amazon which adds up.

Also worth checking hotukdeals for some bargains/mis priced items for grocery shopping. ;)

 

Change your car to a diesel or a model with an engine under 2L in size. Buy second hand car obviously but in good condition.

You will most likely save on :-

1. Depreciation
2. Road Tax
3. MOT
4. Servicing
5. Insurance
6. Fuel

Consider third party only insurance if you are young and the car is of little value.

Look for alternate parking options, consider public transport, car pooling or cycling.

You should easily be able to save £1-2k per annum by the sound of it by applying the above.

Write a monthly budget to see where the money goes, break it down into the obvious categories :-

Food
Travel
Accommodation
Entertainment
Clothes
Education
Sport/Holiday/Leisure
Utilities
etc

Ensue you have all regular payments in there like direct debits, mobile, internet.
Ensure you have all your more flamboyant stuff like kebabs and beer.
Annual expenses like training courses and holidays add up and divide by 12.

Get it all down and then see where the money goes.

See where you want to spend less (or more).

Plan an 'ideal' budget and try to stick to it.

Most importantly plan what you are going to spend the 'saved' money on, a house, a new car, a computer, travelling etc.

You earn the money for a reason, and thats to spend / invest it, so don't forget that, until then its just pieces of paper.

 

I personally manage to save a fortune by being friendless and having no life

 

Honestly, saving money is all about discipline and of course you need to make enough money and have little to no debt in order to save! I was horrible at financial planning back in the day, so I took the time and effort to learn and finally start saving!

One of the things that helps me when putting money aside is to have a goal, for example, why would you be saving your money? do you want to buy a house? do you want to get out of debt? These goals then become motivation... Honestly, just to give you an example, I went from saving something like 5-10% in the first year to close to 50% in the second year and I live a lone, pay my own rent, pay my car loan and all other bills...

Spending money on food was a problem for me too... At one point I was spending like $600 a month on food, and I live a lone! Its because I was always eating out, cut that down and all of a sudden I had a couple of hundred extra each month!

Take the time to sit down, iron out your finances and you'll see where you can make changes to start saving. But like the guys already mentioned, you do save quite a bit of money already, that's more than most people save!

 

Saving sucks- my philosophy

1) Buy a house (retirement sorted)
2) spend the rest, at least until you are 45, you cant take it with you! Pensions will soon be mandatary anyway so that will be sorted
3) Move country and don't live in a country with 45-50% pay deductions and from Feb no Child benefit because "you earn too much" (not my fault i dedicated my life to getting where i am whilst some p1sshead lived it up and lives off my taxes), and pay a high rate of house tax and still have smelly bins because they decide they only want to collect twice a month)!

 

I use the 50/30/20 Budget Method

You basically split your income in to three categories:

• 50% Needs
• 30% Wants
• 20% Savings

Helped me get my finances in to shape!