Tips to Improve on Your Finances

ZenHab​its​.Net has a lot of arti­cles that helps peo­ple improve their finan­cial sit­u­a­tion. Here’s one that gives ways to trick your­self, to get around obsta­cles, and to boost your accounts, with­out it hurt­ing. I have cho­sen the ones most rel­e­vant to me. I have also added my own notes.

1. Use cash. Instead of charg­ing things to credit cards or debit cards, use cash for non-bill spend­ing such as eat­ing out, gas, gro­ceries. Spend­ing cash makes the spend­ing more real, and there’s an added advan­tage of know­ing when you’re out of cash, instead of spend­ing more than you can afford.
2. Use the enve­lope sys­tem. It’s the same idea as using cash for spend­ing, but in addi­tion you use envelopes to split your spend­ing cash into cat­e­gories. My non-bills cat­e­gories are gro­ceries, gas and mis­cel­la­neous spend­ing. Three envelopes, and when they’re empty, I’ve spent my allot­ment. Note from AngPere­grino: Have yet to per­son­ally try this, but it does make sense don’t you think. It keeps us from overspending.
3. Small weekly sav­ings trans­fers. Zen­Hab­its got this idea from Trent at The Sim­ple Dol­lar, who auto­mat­i­cally deducts $20 a week from his check to sav­ings. Note from AngPere­grino: I’ve started doing this by trans­fer­ring a set amount from my pay­roll account to my sav­ings account every pay­day. The next tip is on set­ting it up.
4. Use online sav­ings.Zen­Hab­its uses Emi­grant Direct for this. But there is also ING Direct . These banks not only earn about twice the inter­est of a nor­mal bank sav­ings account, but it also helps in that it’s not as easy to with­draw money … mak­ing it less likely that you’ll get money out on an impulse. Note from AngPere­grino: Check with your local bank if it offers sim­i­lar ser­vices. Or maybe you can check your bank’s web­site to know.
5. Stay home. Going out makes you more likely to spend unnec­es­sar­ily. You eat at restau­rants, go to the mall, stop at the gas sta­tion for snacks. It’s hard to avoid spend­ing when you’re on the road. Instead, stay home, and find free enter­tain­ment. It’s also a great way to bond with your family.
6. Keep a 30-day list. If you have an impulse to buy some­thing you don’t absolutely need, put it on a 30-day list. You can’t buy any­thing but neces­si­ties — every­thing else goes on the list, with the date that it’s added to the list. When the 30 days are up, you can buy it — but most likely, the strong urge to buy it will be gone, and you can eval­u­ate it more calmly. Note from AngPere­grino: I think this is one of the best tips here. Try it, it really works!
7. Declut­ter. By get­ting rid of all the excess stuff in your home, you not only make your life much sim­pler and more peace­ful, but you make it harder to buy stuff that will just clut­ter things up again. Once you’ve sim­pli­fied your home, you won’t want to go back. Note from AngPere­grino: Amen! Amen!
8. Lend and bor­row. Give books and clothes and toys you don’t need any­more to your friends and fam­ily. If you need some­thing, send out an email ask­ing if any­one has it. Chances are, they’ll give it to you for free if they don’t use it anymore.
9. Teach your kids about adver­tis­ing, sav­ing, earn­ing, and gift-giving. If you have kids, edu­cat­ing them about money will save you a lot of money in the long run. If they know about how adver­tis­ing influ­ences them in tricky ways, they’ll be less likely to demand (OK, beg and plead for) the lat­est fad toys. If they know about sav­ing and earn­ing money, they’ll respect the money that you earn, and that you are try­ing to save. If they know that gift-giving doesn’t have to be about spend­ing a lot of money (see above), they won’t nec­es­sar­ily want expen­sive stuff.
10. Find hap­pi­ness in life, not spend­ing. Many times peo­ple buy stuff because they think (sub­con­sciously per­haps) that it will bring them hap­pi­ness. They just HAVE to have the lat­est gad­get or shoes or cars. It’s so fun! And yet, you buy that stuff, and you’re only happy for a day or two at most. Then you just need to buy more. It’s a never-ending cycle. Instead, learn to love life. Find joy in nature! In the peo­ple around you! In doing some­thing you love! In exer­cise and med­i­ta­tion! There’s so much in life to make us happy, there’s no need to find it in spending.

The orig­i­nal arti­cle is here. What about you, what tips do you have to improve our finances?