Hello! If you are new here, welcome to my post detailing the ways you can learn how to save 50% or more of your income. I suggest that you read my welcome page (which lists my most popular and helpful posts) and my latest monthly blogging/online income report.
Before I started blogging, I thought a good percentage to save each month was anywhere from 10% to 20%. I have even read an article where a “finance expert” recommended 5% for retirement savings because they said it was good enough.
Now that I look back on those figures, that is just not nearly enough.
However, that’s what many news articles will tell you. They will tell you that anywhere from 5% to 20% is all you really need. That might work for some, but that’s just not good enough for me.
Recently, I was talking to someone who told me that they save around 85% of their after-tax income each month. I thought that was absolutely insane, but I was a little jealous.
This person goes a little to the extreme in order to save this crazy amount of money each month, but they are happy and that’s all that matters, right?
Related tip: I recommend looking into Digit if you want to trick yourself into saving more money. Digit is a FREE service that looks at your spending and transfers money to a savings account for you. Digit makes everything easy so that you can start saving money with very little effort.
Right now, we save around 60% of our income. That amount could be a little bit higher but we recently had our wedding (and shoveled a lot of our money towards that), we have been traveling more (we have bought a fair amount of camping and hiking equipment in the past 2 months), and a lot of my business income each month goes towards taxes.
Saving a decent percentage of your income each month can mean that you can reach your financial goals quicker. I was able to pay off my $40,000 student loan debt because of my savings habit!
Here are different ways to save 50% or more of your income:
Make more money so that you can save half your income each month.
Making more money can really help you reach an income percentage goal of over 50%. This is because there is usually only so much money you can save, but the amount of money you can make is endless.
You could work a part-time job, a full-time job, multiple jobs, start a business, freelance, and so on. You could also search for passive income and bring in more money with minimal effort.
There are so many things you can do out there to try to make more money.
Some side gigs you may be interested in may include:
Blogging is how I make a living and just a few years ago I never thought it would be possible. I made over $150,000 last year by blogging and will make more than that in 2015. You can create your own blog here with my easy-to-use tutorial. You can start your blog for as low as $2.95 per month plus you get a free domain if you sign-up through my tutorial.
Becoming a virtual assistant.
Survey companies I recommend include VIP Voice, Survey Junkie, Clear Voice Surveys, Product Report Card, Survey Club, ProOpinion, YouGov, Pinecone Research, Opinion Outpost, Survey Spot, SaySo4Profit, PanelBucks, Prize Rebel, PaidSurveys, and Harris Poll Online. They’re free to join and free to use! You get paid to answer surveys and to test products. It’s best to sign up for as many as you can as that way you can receive the most surveys and make the most money.
There are no guarantees when it comes to investing, but you should always start sooner rather than later. If you are looking for a good investing platform, I recommend Motif. Motif Investing allows individuals to invest affordably. This approachable investing platform makes it easy to buy a portfolio of up to 30 stocks, bonds or ETFs for just $9.95 total commission. Plus, you will receive up to $150 for FREE when you use Motif Investing when you sign up under my link.
Become an Uber or Lyft driver – Spending your spare time by driving others around can be a great money maker. Read more about this in my post – How To Become An Uber Or Lyft Driver. Click here to join Uber and start making money ASAP.
Swagbucks is something I don’t use as much, but I do occasionally earn Amazon gift cards with very little work. Swagbucks is just like using Google to do your online searches, except you get rewarded “Swagbucks” for the things you do through their website. Then, when you have enough Swagbucks, you can redeem them for cash, gift cards, and more. You’ll receive a free $5 bonus just for signing up today!
InboxDollars is an online rewards website I recommend. You can earn cash by taking surveys, playing games, shopping online, searching the web, redeeming grocery coupons, and more. Also, by signing up through my link, you will receive $5.00 for free just for signing up!
One company I recommend for virtual assistant work is UserTesting. This website pays you to test websites and they pay fairly well.
Related articles on how to save 50% of your income:
Lower your budget so that you can save half your income each month.
Okay, one of the reasons for why I am able to save so much money each month is because of the amount of money I make. I am not going to try to hide that.
However, just because you make less money does not mean that you can’t save money as well.
The person who I mentioned above who saves 85% of their income makes around $3,000 a month. Yes, so that means they spend $450 a month. I know this isn’t possible for everyone, but if this person can cut their budget then I’m sure others can save more than 20% of their income.
There are many different expenses that you can probably cut out of your budget or at least lower. Just because you are lowering your budget doesn’t mean that you are going to hate life.
Some expenses you can lower or ways to save money include the below. Like I said, everything isn’t for everyone, but even a small change can help you out.
Lower your cell phone bill. Instead of paying the $150 or more that you spend on your cell phone bill, there are companies out there like Republic Wireless that offer cell phone service starting at $5. YES, I SAID $5! If you use my Republic Wireless affiliate link, you can change your life and start saving thousands of dollars a year on your cell phone service. I created a full review on Republic Wireless as well if you are interested in hearing more. I’ve been using them for over a year and they are great.
ATM fees. Why do people do this to themselves?
TV. Cut your cable, satellite, etc. Even go as far to go without Netflix or Hulu. Buy a digital antenna and enjoy free TV – this is what we do!
Sign up for a website like Ebates where you can earn CASH BACK for just spending like how you normally would online. The service is free too! Plus, when you sign up through my link, you also receive a free $10 gift card bonus to Macys, Walmart, Target, or Kohls!
Restaurant spending. Start eating at home more! Become an amazing at-home chef and make your family love your new found skills 🙂
Bring your lunch to work. When I had my day job, I always brought my lunch. This was to save money, but also because I hated wasting most of my lunch hour driving somewhere to get food.
Cut your travel budget. There are plenty of ways to travel on a budget. One way is to start earning credit card rewards.
Use a programmable thermostat so that you can heat and cool your home efficiently and more affordably.
Pay bills on time. The goal here is to try to avoid any late fees.
Shop around for insurance. This includes health insurance, car insurance, life insurance, home insurance and so on. Insurance pricing can vary significantly from one company to the next. When we were shopping for car insurance last, we found that our old company wanted something like $205 to insure one car for one month, whereas the new company we have now charges $50 a month for the same exact coverage. INSANE!
Save money on food. I recently joined $5 Meal Plan in order to help me eat at home more and cut my food spending. It’s only $5 a month (the first four weeks are free too) and you get meal plans sent straight to you along with the exact shopping list you need in order to create the meals. Each meal costs around $2 per person or less. This allows you to save time because you won’t have to meal plan anymore, and it will save you money as well!
Fuel savings. Combine your car trips, drive more efficiently, get a fuel efficient car, etc.
Trade in your car for a cheaper one. For us, we are car people. Cars are one of our splurges. However, if you only have a nice car to keep up with the Joneses, then you might want to get rid of it and get something that makes more sense.
Live in a cheaper home. I’m not saying you need to go live in a box, but if you live in a McMansion then you may want to think about a smaller home. This way you can save money on utility bills and your mortgage payment.
Learn to have more frugal fun. We don’t spend anywhere near the same amount of money on entertainment as we used to. There are plenty of ways to have frugal fun.
DIY certain projects. I recently did a post about DIY wedding ideas and whether they were worth it or not. Read it! 🙂
I highly recommend that you check out Personal Capital (a free service) if you are interested in gaining control of your financial situation. Personal Capital is very similar to Mint.com, but 100 times better as it allows you to gain control of your investment and retirement accounts, whereas Mint.com does not. Personal Capital allows you to aggregate your financial accounts so that you can easily see your financial situation, your cash flow, detailed graphs, and more. You can connect accounts such as your mortgage, bank accounts, credit card accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts, and more, and it is FREE.
Look for coupon codes. I search for coupon codes for everything. Today, I have two for you. I have a $25 Airbnb coupon code and a free taxi ride with Uber. Both are great services that I have personally used.
I spend less money than I used to and I am happier than ever.
Are you trying to save 50% or more of your income? Why or why not? What is your savings rate right now? What are you doing to reach your goal of saving more of your income?
Image via Flickr by Sheila Sund
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