The most common excuse people have for not saving money is that they do not possess any leftover cash after taking care of monthly expenses. This is a serious issue in this country – the cause of which is a lack of financial discipline and spending on unnecessary luxuries.
Wonga S.A. has conducted a survey recently which shows an alarming trend of financial illiteracy taking place in South Africa. A significant portion of adults are struggling with practical money management and access to finance:
For a savings plan to really work you have to make a solid commitment to putting something away every month. If you find you are short of funds for this to be possible than immediate action is required.
Start by taking stock of your finances right now. This means writing down a summary of all the things you spend money on. It’s a good rule of thumb to drill deeper and see what this looks like on a weekly basis. Most of the money we lose to unnecessary spending takes place aside from monthly budgeting. So when you identify the things you could have done without each week you can begin to take back and make significant savings.
A fine habit you can adopt is always trying to make payments in cash. Though it may be convenient to whip out your credit card for spot purchases, the interest and charges you incur, put you in debt, and are self-defeating to your broader financial goals. So by using cash instead of card you soon learn to prevent other unforeseen expenses from adding to your losses.
One way to make saving possible especially when you are just scraping month to month is to jot down every expense you can think of. The main idea is to prioritize them according to how necessary they really are. You can do this by giving each of them a score out 10 as a description of how important they are. If you do this in a spreadsheet you can then sort the list to see which expenses can begin to fall away.
By actively finding ways to reduce your monthly expenditure you are in effect already saving money. The bigger goal would then be to get back more surplus cash which you can put towards a more rewarding savings plan for the long term. Be sure to set a realistic goal and then move forward with determination.