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Ways To Save Faster

By Richard Greenwood

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 23Jan2009
Word count: 700
Viewed: 267 time(s)

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In today's economy it's time to say goodbye to debt and start saving for the big items you want such as new appliances, vacations and cars. Opening a savings account is a start but you'll need to do a bit more to reach your goals quickly. Find out how to save faster with these easy tips.

Create a Budget: In order to free up more money for savings you should create a household budget. Start by noting down all your incoming income such as wages, dividends from shares and any others. Then add up roughly how much you spend on outgoings each month. Allow money for big items such as insurance that you may pay once per year as well as things like travel and car maintenance. Once you have added this up you will see how much money you should have spare each month. If you are spending more than you earn then you will be pushing yourself further into debt each month and need to take some urgent action. Look for areas in the budget where you can make cutbacks and savings.

Reduce costs: In order to free up more money than you have at the moment then you need to cut back on some of your costs. By cutting back in lots of little ways it can add to a big difference. Here are just a handful of ideas to get you started. - Take your own lunch and coffee into work instead of buying it out. If you spend $10 a day, 20 days a week on food, snacks and coffees that will add up to $2,400 a year. Taking your own would only cost a fraction. - Cut back on a couple of luxuries or unhealthy snacks from your weekly groceries. For example if you removed a $2 bag of corn-chips and a $3 six pack on soft drink you would save an extra $260 per year. - Rent a movie instead of going to the cinema. Renting a movie for the whole family only costs a few dollars compared to an expensive trip to the movies with tickets for each person and expensive drinks and snacks.

Set Goals: It's much easier to stay motivated if you have something exciting to aim for. Set yourself regular goals of how much you aim to save in three, six or twelve month's time. Think about something you want the savings for such a vacation, a new TV or a new automobile. Knowing that you can book that holiday or go and get that new car once you save enough will be a big help in saving faster. Raise Extra for Savings Go through your home and find all the things that you have not used or worn recently or don 't think you will use again and try to sell them through Ebay, garage sales and so on. Put all the money raised directly into your high interest savings account.

Boost Your Interest: The next thing is choosing the right savings account. You want to look at high interest savings accounts offering the best interest rates available. The best interest rates often come with the high interest online savings accounts as online banks have lower overheads and pass these on with higher interest rates. When comparing a high interest savings account check if the interest rate is an introductory offer or ongoing as well as any fees or penalties for withdrawing your money.

Automate Your Savings: Rather than having to remember to set aside money each month and pay it into your high interest savings account, set up a direct debit so a set amount of money goes direct to the savings account each month. You can still make extra payments but this at least ensures your balance keeps growing and you don't get a chance to spend the money first.

Hopefully all this tips will help get you on the road to saving faster. Make yourself a budget, set some goals and get started now. With some motivation and a few little changes you will find you can get the things you want faster than you may think and without the costs and stress of debt.

This article on saving money and high interest savings account products is by Richard Greenwood of the Click 4 Group which runs a number of finance comparison websites to help consumers compare and apply for the best banking products for their needs. The sites feature leading banks including the BankWest Telenet Saver account.

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