Fostering a Savings Mindset

There are many ways to save money and once you get into the swing of saving it is not as hard as it appears. In fact after a while you will even find that saving has become second nature to you. So here are a set of 5 simple tips that will help you foster a savings mindset. We have picked tips from different areas of life such as grocery shopping, dining out, and travel.

Tip #01: When shopping for groceries buy items in multi-packs whenever possible. It works out far cheaper than buying singles of anything.

Tip #02: Pack your own lunch instead of picking up something at the local deli. Assume you were to pack lunch thrice a week saving $8 each time, it would add up to a saving of $1152 per year. There is an important lesson here where saving is concerned. We often spend small sums unthinkingly assuming that there is no value in saving such amounts. However as you may have noticed in the above example, even the small change can add up to quite a bit over a period of time.

Tip #03: Eating in restaurants is quite expensive. But we all love our little comforts and luxuries in life. Now it would not be practical or even possible to promise yourself that you won't eat out. However, what you can do instead is to have drinks and appetizers at home and then go out for a meal. Think about it! Drinks are restaurants are pretty expensive. Many restaurants charge as much as $5 for a cocktail and a glass of wine may cost $7-8.

Tip #04: Assume you need to travel. Are you on the verge of picking up the phone to call your travel agent to make the booking? Hang on a second. Consider scouting around the Internet instead. You are bound to find good bargains on airline seats here.

Tip #05: Assume you need to create a budget and you don't have a budget Program or a spreadsheet program. Save yourself what could be hundreds of dollars. Don't purchase a program. Download Open Office and load it on your computer for free. Get the added bonus of being able to open files in Open Office that were created in Microsoft Office.

Tip #06: Assume that you need to get out of debt. It can sometimes become impractical to make your purchases in bulk amounts as you will have money tied up sitting on your pantry shelf or the freezer, when you would in fact be far better off if the money had reduced your debt load.

Tip #07: Make a shopping list before leaving home to go to the grocery shop. Stick to the list. Forget the temptations.

Tip #08: Make sure that you never go shopping when you are hungry or thirsty. Takeaway food and drinks are expensive compared to home made.

Tip #09: Assuming that you have children. Go shopping when your partner can mind the children or you can get someone safe to mind them for you. You won't have a running battle and you won't be tempted to give into their wants.

Tip #10: Assuming that you are a gardener. Recycle your cans that come out of the kitchen. Put some holes in the bottom and around the side of the can/tins near the folded rim as these holes may be the lowest that allow the can/tins to drain.

Tip #11: Again assuming that you are a gardener. Reduce your garden waste. Cut up sticks and lay them in the bottom of your pots. Cover the sticks with dry foliage. Like raked up leaves etc. This provides a temporary retainer and drainage for the pot. As the root-mass builds in the pot it can feed on this material. This reduces the cost of fertilizing.

Tip #12: Assume you are a computer user connected to the internet. Learn to install the programs that you use on the computer. If you do then you may likely save lots of money by not having to take your computer to the supplier every time a program no longer works. Kids have the knack of deleting files and making computers unusable.

The author Reg Whelan has a site offering you training to add a residual income to your budget.

The importance of developing a Budget and recording expenditure.

I know there is more here about the importance of developing a budget as an integral part of developing your Savings Mindset.

Without a budget we just take it for granted that we are not being wasteful with our money. This is often not the case. Some of us find it difficult or even distasteful to draw up a budget and stick to it. The need to draw up a budget and to write down what we spend our money on does not imply that we don't know how to manage money or that we are wasting it.

Most will find that writing down and keeping a record of what they spend money on and how much will open their eyes considerably. Once they commence to keep records they will find that actually managing their money becomes very easy.

Once they face the reality of where the money went most will become empowered. They will actually look forward to being able to find out where they can make cuts to their spending. They have now found the key to developing their savings mindset further.

Recycling is fast becoming a feature of many council rubbish collections. We should all look at how we can save money by recycling some of our own waste products. When we are fortunate enough to find promotion materials on ordinary letter or a4 size pages, (particularly government and political self promotions), in our mail, we know we don't have to buy that much note paper for doing calculations making notes etc.

The author Reg Whelan has a site offering you training to add a residual income to your budget.