Saving is always better than spending if we are to have a viable and secure lifestyle. While most of us certainly do know this age old adage, yet seldom follow it, which unfortunately leads to our very obvious detriment. Yes, most of us have made sporadic attempts at saving our salaries and funds and do manage to do precisely that, only to splurge all over again and its back to ground zero. This holds eve truer if we have just survived a really bad debt trap. Once the debts have been repaid, we make a solemn promise with ourselves to never ever go down that road again. Only to fall down the same slippery slope because not having debts means we are financially free…. Free that is, to incur more debts, that is we go off on a spending binge.
Think of it alone the lines of eating a healthy diet, till you have achieved your desired weight loss and can put on your old clothes with pride, you keep on dieting with grim determination. Once that has happened, you have no need to diet and you revert to your old eating habits. And before you know it you have ballooned and now pack even more weight than you did even before you started dieting in the first place.
Here are a few pointers to help ensure that you are able to save your money, rather than being in debt.
1. If you have debts, you need to pay them off first thing!
Yes, paying debts is a very, very important part of your financial cycle, but would it not be nicer if you never had debts to begin with? Owing people money and having them ask you to pay back consistently is not really a nice feeling, is it? However, if you have savings, then even if you were in debt all you would need to do would be to dip into your savings and get rid of your debt, once and for all.
2. Save something for a rainy day
Always try and save at least 12% of your total monthly earnings irrespective of what your earning actually may be. Here the key buzz word is ‘consistency.’ If you save for a few months, only to blow away all your savings on the latest model 7.1 surround sound system, than should there be a real emergency that electronic gadget would not be of much use. However, doing so for years would mean a sizable nest egg that you may then invest and thereby earn from your savings. This way, you would be able to buy from the ‘earnings from your savings’ rather then taking loans that you could ill afford to pay.
Conclusion
Yes, it is not easy to curb your expenses and live on only a portion of your earnings, month in month out. You may have to restrict fine dining to a bare minimum and even cut down on your entertainment related activities. But, in the long run, this is the best way to live a relatively debt free life.
