Many families are completely unable to properly spend the money coming into the family budget. Millions of people spend thousands of rubles every month on things that are completely unnecessary to them, and you can afford to spend extra money only with large incomes. However, making spontaneous purchases is common to everyone. Therefore, the question of how to spend money rationally worries almost everyone. The answer to this question can be found in our article, in addition, learn how to allocate your budget and plan all your expenses.
How to learn to save
In order to learn how to save family money, you should not limit your needs, you need to competently manage your finances. So, how to learn how to rationally spend money and save:
- Constantly keep a record of all your expenses, analyze them. Accustom yourself to highlight priority spending, and secondary, without which you can do.
- Plan your expenses in the framework of received (earned) funds.
- Accustom yourself to save money for unforeseen expenses, this will allow you not to take loans in a crisis period (job loss, illness, and so on).
General rules for saving
If you exclude unnecessary expenses, this does not mean at all to lower your quality of life. How not to spend a lot of money or saving rules:
- Never go shopping hungry or immediately after getting paid. You must first plan your budget, and then go shopping.
- Always go to the store with a pre-prepared list of products that you need to buy, and visit only those departments where these products are located. These measures will allow you not to buy completely unnecessary products and small things.
- To buy things out of season. Thus, you can significantly save the family budget on such things as a down jacket, leather goods, sheepskin coats, boots and so on. The only rule is not to lose your head from the discount system and not to buy completely unnecessary things.
- When calculating in the store, do not use credit cards, that is, use only cash, and immediately after making purchases, calculate the remaining money.
- If you decide to make a major purchase, you should not give in to the impulse, it is better to postpone the time of purchase, weigh everything well and then only purchase this product.
- To the extent possible, try to buy in bulk. If there are any goods that are bought regularly, you should try to buy them in bulk, this will save costs on it, for example personal hygiene products, products with a long storage period, animal feed, household chemicals and so on.
- Try to use discount cards and cashback options for discounts.
- It is wise to approach various promotions, protect yourself from the temptation to buy unnecessary things.
- Do not be tempted by advertising, it is she who is the main enemy of the family budget. Without many advertised things, you can completely dispense with or buy a cheaper and not necessarily bad product.
- Constantly take care of your health to do regular examinations with a doctor so as not to start any disease (not to introduce a family into a crisis situation with the disease).
Ways to save money
You can save money in the family using several simple ways:
- Separation method. It is necessary to divide all income into 5 equal parts, four of which are intended for four weeks of the month, that is, only one of the four parts is allowed per week. The fifth part is for the last remaining days of the month and for accumulation.
- Cost analysis for all purchases and payment for services. All expenses can be recorded in a notebook, notebook, compiled Excel table on a working or home computer. At the end of each month, analyze your spending. This method helps to identify excess costs that can be reduced or completely eliminated.
- Full refusal of loans. Loans for vacation, for the purchase of household appliances, a computer, a telephone are completely unreasonable decisions. It is much better to save money and buy the desired thing than to overpay for it in the form of bank interest.
What is the money spent on
Before you start preparing a financial plan, you need to find out where all your money is spent:
- Write down how much each of you puts in a common piggy bank.
- Write down how much each of you spends on your hobbies and entertainment (cars, salons, needlework, fishing, and so on).
- Calculate how much your family spends on food every month.
- Rational spending of money also implies that only one spouse will have to go to the store, and not both.
- Try not to buy ready-to-cook foods, but to cook your own food at home.
- Count family expenses on gasoline, medical insurance, the Internet, review them and identify what expenses can be reduced.
How to spend money rationally and how compulsory expenses differ from secondary
In order to save money and spend money rationally, we draw up a family financial plan for a month. First of all, it is necessary to enter all the estimated expenses (in descending order of their importance). Distribute all expenses into categories:
- Urgent payments or obligatory expenses are meals, utility bills, loan payments (if any), treatment.
- Minor payments - training, household appliances, clothing, vacation, savings.
- Unimportant payments - restaurants, entertainment, smoking, alcohol, expensive clothes, spas, new products.
It is necessary to carry funds only for current needs. But the question arises: "How much money to spend per day?". Everything is very individual. It is necessary to sit down and calculate the amount that you can spend per day painlessly for the family budget. Desperate shopping enthusiasts need to put credit cards out of their wallet and buy strictly only what was planned.
Where to save
So, how to spend money rationally or where you can reduce your expenses? Let's get it right. You can reduce costs by:
- utility bills, if you install gas and water meters;
- household appliances, that is, not to buy goods with a huge number of additional functions, this significantly increases its value;
- clothing, buying it at sales or at the end of the season;
- nutrition, reduce the consumption of meat, reduce the number of desserts, buy food in bulk or at competitive prices; but you should not save on vegetables and fruits, as they are needed for proper nutrition and are rich in all the vitamins and minerals necessary for the body.
Save energy
To do this, you must:
- purchase energy-saving light bulbs;
- turn off the electricity when leaving the room;
- to acquire household appliances of class A, AA or A +, they consume less electricity;
- do not put a refrigerator or freezer near a stove, radiator, battery, in addition, they must be periodically thawed;
- disconnect all electrical appliances from the network after using them.
Save on bad habits
How to spend money rationally? Oddly enough, smokers, lovers of beer, lovers of fast food most of all ask this question. If you analyze all the costs of this group of people, you can find that the costs of bad habits, such as cigarettes, alcohol, chips, hamburgers, eat them several thousand rubles a month. By eliminating these costs, you can easily save money and stay healthy.
How to save with a small salary
Small incomes are an incentive to streamline all your expenses. You must learn to plan all your expenses according to the funds received. Loans should be discarded, more important family needs should be identified, and adjusted depending on real income. Reduce spending on secondary needs.
Make an approximate menu for the week and make purchases strictly according to the list.
What to spend big money on
There is also the opposite situation, when there is a lot of money, and a person does not know at all where to put it and what to do with it. So, examples of where you can rationally invest your big money:
- Journey.
- Health of your own and loved ones.
- Education.
- Purchase and home improvement.
- Relaxation.
- Buying quality goods.
- Charity.
- Real estate investing.
- Deposits in the bank.
How to start saving money for a dream
In order to start saving money, you need to determine the goals for what they are needed, for example, buying a car, housing, home repair, vacation. Then start to save a certain amount of money every month, while you can use additional sources of income, for example, put the accumulated money in a bank on deposit and receive interest.
Instead of output, or save without fanaticism
In any business, the main thing is not to overdo it. You need to save, save or spend wisely. Often, cheap goods lose in quality, and this bodes additional costs, because it is not for nothing that the people say: “Avaricious pays twice.”
When purchasing goods on a stock, it is necessary to find out the reasons for the markdown. After all, it can be an expired product, using which, you can get serious health problems and, as a result, extra costs for treatment.
You should not save on children and buy poor-quality Chinese goods and toys that can provoke various diseases in the baby.
It is better to refuse an extra handbag or pair of shoes, but not save on health.
Rational spending of funds should be without fanaticism, do not deny yourself everything, collecting money for a brighter future. It is simply necessary to observe the golden rule - do not succumb to the influence of the environment, compare prices, do not succumb to emotions and advertising influence, be moderate in everything.
You need to live here today, you should not deprive yourself of joys and pleasant moments, but always think about the next day and the next opportunities.