Asklemmy

If you spend money on entertainment, stop doing that and pirate shit instead.

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Find out how much you're spending on what. That will let you determine whether the amount you spend on which things is actually worth it to you in the cold light of day, and show you where you can make the most effective cuts. Diagnosis is the first step: treatment without diagnosis is not helpful.

Tons of expense tracking apps out there that will download straight from your bank & credit card. You Need A Budget/YNAB seems t be pretty popular.

Do you drive? If you live, work, and buy groceries within five miles distance, consider ditching your car and cycling instead. If you're nervous about how feasible this is, you can save on gas by keeping the car while you get used to riding. But the full savings come when you're not paying for insurance, parking, and maintenance of the vehicle.

If you don't do it already then start to Meal-Prep and cook more at home instead of going out. Saves you a lot in the long term and it's usually healthier too.

It starts with understanding what you're spending money on. You can't control what you don't measure. Get some idea of what you are buying, be aware of the cost of things.

Even if you don't set down a full budget, you want to be able to go to the grocery store, say 'x dollars is all I need to spend' and then come out having spent less than that. If you don't know how much you spend on an average shop, that won't ever happen.

Second to this is any purchase that is a 'want' above 'y' dollarydos, sleep on it. Steam sale? Put what you want in your cart. Is it more than twenty bucks? Ok, no problem, I'll buy it tomorrow. Half the time you wake up and forget you ever wanted it. Sweet, money saved. Nice pair of shoes at the shop? Cool, I'll come back tomorrow and try them on. Gives you a chance to find it elsewhere, cheaper.

Start by saving a penny a day. Get over your refusal to create a new account, and make a savings account if you don’t have one.

Baby steps are about developing habits, not about effecting change. A baby step is a habit that’s a seed. You plant that seed by establishing the habit. And your habit is moving money to savings every day.

Or you can do every paycheck if you like. It makes more sense operationally if your money comes in paychecks.

But don’t underestimate the power of doing it daily as part of programming your subconscious.

The fact that it’s one cent makes the amount not matter or affect your current budget. This allows you to cultivate the habit without having to deal with all the temptation that a pile of money creates, not the sacrifices required to actually move that money into savings.

See how long you can go putting 1¢ per day — manually, in your banking app — into the savings account, before the urge to save more starts to arise.

You need to train your subconscious to see saving money as a satisfying way to spend it. To see having $5 of savings as so delicious that it’s worth “spending” $5 on. “Spending” in the sense it’s no longer there ready to spend.

The other thing, the other mental aspect of this, is to assign a job to that savings. Don’t just “save some money”. Save it for something specific.

A buffer is a good thing to save for. A buffer means a reduction in anxiety. It can be a big buffer or a small one. It should be earmarked for something specific that you need, and the purpose is to allow you live without fear of losing that thing you need.

In my case, I keep a $100 buffer that allows me to charge my car. I drive an EV for Uber, and if my bank account is empty I’m screwed in terms of making money because I can’t charge the car and earn.

So to retain the ability to earn money when my checking account is empty, I have a separate bank account that always has $100 in it.

It’s not much. It’s not designed to cover all my expenses. It’s designed to charge my car three times, which in turn allows me to make about $500 by driving Uber. It’s designed to keep my earning system active.

Examples of other hypothetical buffers and their purposes (imaginary; I don’t have these)

• $5,000 to cover two months’ mortgage
• $200 to cover two weeks’ worth of groceries
• $100 to cover three weeks of bus fare to and from work to ensure one more paycheck before one’s dead in the water
• $500,000 to cover all living expenses from age 62 to age 90 (this kind of buffer is also called a “retirement”)

Also, you can save for experiences, for investments, etc:

• $3,000 for a trip to Cancun
• $4,000 for a down payment on a car
• $500 for massage therapy licensing fees (you save this up while taking night classes for massage)

Basically, for me at least, it works better to have a specific goal to save for. In my experience a “general fund” that I save into — without a clear vision of what the money’s for — tends to get eaten up by emergencies.

Emergencies seem like magic appearing at exactly the moment you finally have some money saved up, but I think it’s a subconscious thing. You only see things you can interact with, and when you have more cash you can interact with more things. Suddenly an unavoidable catastrophe becomes one that can be avoided for … exactly the balance of your savings account.

Learning where your money goes.

Fill your time with free things that you think are healthy. Walk. Invite friends over. Go to the library and get something for the night (book, movie, video game).

The more free things you do, the less time spending money.

Stop buying take out food. Since pandemic starts we now make all food at home. Last week we were out of town and had to stop on the way home for dinner, two sub's at subway was $26. Normally that $26 at our local independent grocer gives us more than a week of food.

You need to analyze how you are currently spending money. You can't know what to cut if you don't know what can be cut.

Cook at home. Use mostly fresh ingredients. Staple foods are cheap... Rice, beans, etc

Beans and rice with oil and vinegar can hit the spot every day for lunch

Cold cut sandwich with fresh veggies. Bonus for homemade bread!

Eggs. Pasta. Eggs & pasta

For snacks, popcorn on your stove. Flavor with salt or spices. (I love Tajin!)

Keep a few spices in your kitchen. Have a decent olive oil and something high temp like grapeseed or vegetable oil

Avoid alcohol. If you must, don't drink in bars. (I'm alcoholic... I know it's hard to quit)

Learn how to properly operate your home's thermostat in summer and winter. Set it for automatic and dial in your preferred temperature. Leave it constant. This is vastly more efficient than turning it on and off and on and off.

Don't speed when driving a car. It takes more gas and can get you ticketed

Don't pay for TV or streaming services. Just pirate. Pirate games too. Books from libgen

For internet access, it may be best value to get unlimited mobile data and make a Hotspot for your PC

Have a specific savings plan. Set X% aside immediately after receiving each paycheck. If possible, get a high-interest account where you're required to make monthly deposits

If you have a hobby, hopefully it's cheap. If you can monetize it without killing your passion, go for it. If you have an expensive hobby, try to make enough money from it to offset the costs (I study fiddle. I busk to pay for strings, bowhair, and occasional lessons)

Consider leaving the US for a place that's cheaper or offers better terms. I left to teach English in Korea and China. Was able to save money and have a robust social life.

Define "healthy", OP. Like, mentally healthy? That's pretty dependent on what your personal tastes are - the game is to find the things you can tolerate that most people can't as well, and to save on whatever those may be. Medically healthy? Aside from food most unhealthy habits are expensive anyway. If food, canned veggies are underrated, at least where I live.

One pretty universal thing, I guess, is not spending on the first thing put in front of you, metaphorically or physically. The entire surveillance capitalism and marketing economy is set up to part idiots from their money that way.

I like to divide my spending into two broad categories: needs and wants. For example, I need food and shelter to survive, but I only want that really cute blahaj (even though it feels like I need it). Things that I want I can skip, things that I need I cannot. You have to be very honest with yourself for that to work well though.

Of course life is not fun if you're only surviving, so it's OK to treat yourself occasionally with things you want. Just make sure you're saving enough before spending on "wants".

It's also often possible to break down "needs" further, since you may need some functionality (e.g. something to eat, something to hit nails with, etc.) but the specific item is not a need. I will prefer the cheapest option if I don't have any other requirements. I tend to like things that'll last though (they're usually cheaper in the long run), so I'm willing to not cheap out if that's a factor.

I am a very pragmatic and minimalist person though, so I don't think this advice will work for everyone.

Create a household account book. Either use existing solutions like apps, go the excel / sheets route (I did) or use pen&paper with a calculator to help you out.

Learn how budgeting works in the first place. This step is REALLY important! I recreated my household account book two more times because I was an idiot who ignored learning the bare basics on money and accounting. There's a reason it's a profession with proper wordings and not some obsure hobby. Use youtube tutorials for that, as you will need several examples to understand budgeting in general.

Once you've got that down, measure your income and expenses over a year. Estimate your last year by category and type of expense, write reoccuring yearly and monthly expenses down. Create a saving expense to build up a budget buffer. You WILL need a buffer for all the variations you inevitably will encounter throughout a year. Once you understand how much you spent monthly to stay alive, calculate how much you can spent freely (pocket money). Ideally, put that pocket money on a separate account with a separate card as access to it and "pay yourself" that pocket money. Your main account should be the houshold expenses account with strict rules on spendings. It's also where all your income enters to finance it.

If you'Ve reached this point, you will need to let it run for a couple of months to work out a lot of kinks in it. Food budget, mobility budgets, health budgets, etc. all need to be tuned to fit your needs. Whatever's left goes to saving or pocket money. That's up to you. Set yourself a minimal safety savings point that will keep you alive for half or a full year without (relevant) income. That's enough buffer for most expenses you will encounter.

So after all of this you should have a good understanding how much you spend on what. That's when you dive deeper and look into each spending category, including food and rent (often the two major expenses). Cutting out or replacing certain type of foods or drinks with cheaper alternatives have huge impacts on your available money.

The rest should slowly become obvious if you've educated yourself enough to reach this point. It's all about learning and understanding, really.

So I don’t want to advertise an expensive product but the only thing that helped me finally save money and stop worrying about unexpected costs was You Need A Budget (YNAB). The concept is you put every single cent into categories like groceries, subscriptions, rent, put some aside for car insurance, saving for a new TV, and so on. And you also add every current, future and recurring transaction and connect it to the categories. Once you have this running for a few months it becomes second nature and you will not only be saving lots of money but also be ready for everything.

It has a learning curve but it’s worth it. There is a free alternative called Actual Budget, but you have to host it yourself and the UI is not great.

Just put that money in an inaccessible investment instantly, SK you don't have it to spend in the first place. What that investment is, is your moral and fiscal choice.

Could be stocks, although yknow.

A friend of mine invests into stock of resellers. Maybe an SME, they are tax beneficial. Idk if those are a thing where you are.

Quit smoking. Vapes and mix your own liquids is cheaper than tabacco or premade liquid/pods.

Restaurant, bars and cafe can be a huge spending. You can also do a romantic dinner at home.

Check all your subscribed services you may find a cheaper competitor.

Before buying anything ask yourself about whether you really need it, and whether there is a used alternative available

If you do have money, set an auto transfert of 100-200€ to a saving account at the start of the month, you'll main account would feel empty faster.

Stop going out to eat and or drink. Besides saving money you will probably lose some weight