Most if not all of us suffer from a poor saving culture.
We might have tried to save but eventually, we go back to having zero savings in the account.
Below are a few tips on how to easily build a permanent savings culture.
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1.Know your financial health
In other words, know how much regular income you get and the expenses that you have.
If your expenses are exceeding your income this is a cause for alarm.
The best remedy is to increase your source of income.
A person putting money away
Increasing your sources of income you thereby can increase the amount of money that you save.
But first, you have to find out where your money is draining off to.
You cannot fix something if you don’t know what needs fixing.
How do you fix this?
Keep a record of your expenses for at least three months without changing any of your spending habits.
You’ll be surprised to find out where your money goes.
If you buy something out of your budget, write it down.
Do not be ashamed to jot down those expensive purchases that you would rather keep hidden away or simply forget about.
Know where that coin goes off to. As well as avoid claiming that you don’t know where your money “goes to”.
2. Write your savings goals down.
This might be the most important step but one of the most overlooked.
Personally, I have been overlooking it but not anymore, you simply need to know the hidden secret in writing.
Do you want to buy that classic phone or expensive car, that house, or even better retire early?
Write it down and give it a timeline.
Your timeline could be one year, five years, ten, or even twenty years. Know your specifics.
After writing down your savings goals and giving them a timeline you can now start saving.
If I have learned anything from reading personal finance books it is that you need to ALWAYS PAY YOURSELF FIRST.
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This means that before you do anything with your money always save first, nobody knows about the future.
Your savings is the only money that you retain as yours the rest goes into other people’s pockets.
You might be wondering where to save your money.
4 TYPES OF SAVINGS ACCOUNTS that we should have.
Caution, I am not talking about a fixed income saving account and the like.
Below are a few types of savings accounts to help us achieve our savings goals.
1.AN EMERGENCY FUND
Do you know how much money you spend in a month?
From rent, clothing, food, and other miscellaneous expenses?
Well, an emergency fund is an account that has 3 to 6 months of living expenses.
You might be wondering why you need an emergency fund.
This is the answer. what would happen if your source of income was cut off?
Take a minute and think about it.
Most of us would start accumulating a lot of debt in order to cater to our daily living expenses.
Sad I know.
Others would start living with friends and family.
How long would our friends and family accommodate us?
A month at most, then what?
You become a liability and you have to find your way to fit in.
An emergency fund will cater for such an eventuality.
Giving us time to get back on their feet, without getting stressed or worse depressed.
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2.A SHORT TERM SAVINGS ACCOUNT
This particular account is to cater to short term goals.
That is the goal you want to achieve within one year.
These goals could include saving up for that new phone that you need, that vacation that you want to go on, or even better that investment that you want to be part of.
3.A MEDIUM-TERM SAVINGS ACCOUNT
This account could cater to your savings goals for more than one year but not more than 3 years.
Such goals could include paying off a loan, buying a car, or even moving into a better neighborhood.
Whatever the goal is. Write it down and start hunting it.
4.A LONG TERM SAVINGS ACCOUNT
This type of account should cater to your savings goals for more than three years.
It could be 5 years, ten or twenty years.
Bottom line is, a long term savings account is to achieve long term goals.
These long term saving goals could include saving up for retirement.
HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR SAVINGS GOALS?
1. Track your spending habits to know what you can do away within your budget.
Do not be afraid of cutting back on a few things in order to achieve your financial goals this should be done in order of priority, those that you don’t need (luxury and those that keep you comfortable).
2. Determine how much money you need in order to achieve your savings goals.
3. Determine how much you need to set aside each month and how long it will take.
For example, if you have expenses worth ksh.10,000 per month and you need 6 months worth of living expenses for your emergency fund.
This means that you need around ksh.60,000.
If your timeline for the emergency fund is one year that means that you’ll need to set (ksh.60,000/12 months) ksh.5000 per month aside to achieve this goal.
Start saving. Don’t stop until you achieve your savings goals. Save wisely!!!
WHERE TO SAVE
you can start saving from the comfort of your mobile phone.
For Safaricom users, you can start saving in your mshwari.
For others, you can start saving in your bank account.
Though this will not yield much.
Bank accounts give low interest on your savings.
Other convenient places to save include Saccos.
Saccos give loans as much as three times of your savings.
This is one of the reasons why many Kenyans save using Saccos.
However, before you start saving do thorough research on a particular Sacco.
Other places Kenyas save in are chamas or the popular merry go round.
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In conclusion
In order to build a permanent savings culture, we have to
1. know where our money is going to
2.set saving goals
3. Start hunting our savings goals.
Well, I hope that this article was helpful, comment in the comment section below where you are saving your money.