Deciding to plan for your future consists of setting short, medium and long terms financial goals, and ensuring you save enough for retirement. As the retirement age gets later and later, some people postpone this, thinking that their superannuation will be enough. When retirement seems so far away it is easy to opt for the short term goals instead of your long term, but you can, with careful planning, achieve both.
Sitting down with a financial advisor can be costly and one of the biggest things they are going to tell you is how you need to save more. If you want to save for your short, medium and long term goals then here are some tips for saving money and on how to reach those goals.
Tips for Saving Money
Get a hold of spending
In order to get a hold of future saving then you will have to get a hold of spending. Getting serious about where your paycheck is going is the first step to know how you will be able to save. There are many apps out there to track your spending habits and definitely helpful at the beginning stages of setting up a savings plan. Once you know exactly how much you spend, you can look at smart ways to curb unnecessary spending and look at putting in place measures to spend less over time.
Money Saving Examples
- Plan your family meals, including lunch, so you don’t have to spend money on take out/home delivery
- Simplify your Pay TV – do you really need Netflix and Stan?
- Make your coffee in a keepcup and take on the way to work ($4.50 x five days a week does add up)
- Quit smoking (we hope you do this anyway)
- Cut back on wine during the week
- Shop online to avoid impulse purchases at the supermarket
- Pick up casual jobs on Airtasker
- Don’t try to Keep Up With The Kardashian’s – you don’t need to impress others with what you have
- Balance FOMO/YOLO mindset and try to embrace delayed gratification.
Commit To Saving
Try to think of savings as “paying yourself”. When you spend money, you are in essence paying others. A person who saves is keeping their money for their future peace of mind. A regular payment into a savings account is the surest way to make sure you will have the funds when you need them and you have enough for retirement.
Locking those savings into an account that can not be dipped into without a penalty is a great way of making sure you do not plunder your saving on a rainy day. This might be one of the most important tips for saving money.
Visualise Your Goals So You Have Enough For Retirement
Setting clear goals for your future is the best way to actually achieve those goals. A sound financial plan has distinct goals and paths to get to there. Retirement is the biggest savings goal that a person will have and it should be treated with respect but there will also be short and medium term goals such as:
- saving for a vacation
- a new car
- child’s college living expenses.
A Future Focused Mindset
In order to have in the future sometimes we have to do without in the present. While this might seem like some ancient proverb it is actually the most fundamental savings advice. This is not just one of the tips on saving money but a sound way to look at money. A dollar today is worth many times more in the future and every dollar spent today should be looked at as many possible dollars that you cannot spend in the future.
Ten Years To Save Enough For Retirement?
It is still possible, with just 10 years to retirement, to make and stick to a savings plan that will provide you with enough to be comfortable. If you have not saved a lot of money you really need to make an honest assessment of you are and look at what sacrifices you are are willing to make in order to be comfortable when you may be unable to work in the future. A few steps now, can make one huge difference down the track. You do need to play catchup at this stage, but it is never too late to improve your financial future. Check out the government’s Smart Money Retirement Calculator.
Last Thoughts
Tips for saving money are only as good as you make them so make use of these tools and get your savings in order so you can reach your goals so you can save enough for retirement as well as all the saving goals along the way.
