How To Save Money Each Month: What To Do Every Pay Day

Knowing how to save money each month is the starting point for saving money and creating wealth. However, many people are so resigned to the idea of working until 65 and paying bills, that they lack a positive money mindset.

A positive mentality, optimism and sense of control when it comes to personal finance is pretty elusive for many people. For example, The majority of people spend 35 to 40 hours a week working hard to earn a pay-check but despite working so hard for that money, the average person spends 7000% more time watching TV than they do on their finances.

This equates to just 3% of Americans spending time on household financial management and on average they spend less than 2 minutes per day managing their finances. Given this is the situation, we need to think of some very quick wins we can put in place to multiply and compound up financial success. Luckily, there is one thing in particular that people can do to achieve this goal.

#1 Always Pay Yourself First

This is usually an afterthought after the compulsory payments and fun money. However, by taking a positive mindset with money you will start to see the fun of saving and the immediate benefits you will receive from having good money habits. You will:

1. Have more money to spend each money
2. Have more money to spend in the immediate future e.g. holidays
3. See your net worth exponentially increase over time
4. Start to visualise a future where you have passive income

Setting your intention at each pay-day will drive a wealth mentality. This all starts by automating the withdrawal of a set amount of your pay-check and putting this into a separate savings account and/or investment account. This could be just 5% to 20% of your monthly salary but over time this will add up.

If you pay yourself first before all other spending behaviours you will learn to cut out the unnecessary things to both save and enjoy your life. Thus de-cluttering your lifestyle. Over time, your money management system will be efficient and you can divert and direct your saving power where needed: house fund, travel fund, retirement fund etc.

#2 Go Grocery Shopping

Making food is fun, especially when you have some new recipes to try. You can often make better food than what you will get as a takeaway or even in some restaurants. By planning out your shopping trip, you can meal-plan and buy ingredients that you can use across multiple meals.

Buying healthy nutritional food will increase your productivity and stop you craving junk food. Junk food will ultimately cost you even more money). There is also evidence that maintaining a healthy lifestyle and eating a healthy diet including certain superfoods can help you to earn by 28% more. Overall these lifestyle changes can help reportedly help you to save $110,000 more than your unhealthy counterpart.

Tips to save you money when you go shopping:

• Don’t shop when you are hungry as you will have less willpower and emotional control.
• Try to dissuade yourself from buying branded items and instead review the ingredients label.
• Look at the bottom rather than eye line shelves to save money this is often where the best value for money can be found. Products in the eye-level space will often be more expensive.
• Cut down on your meat intake, perhaps try ‘meat’ free Mondays. Find out how much this can cut your food bill by.
• Walk around the supermarket the opposite way to what seems logical, so you miss things like the fruit and vegetables first. These are always at the front of the store because once you’ve picked them up, you’re less likely to feel guilty about buying the stuff you don’t need e.g. chocolate.
• The flowers and fruit and veg are also used to prime you for freshness making everything else seem healthier.
• Make a list and stick to it and keep your time in a supermarket to less than 40 minutes, otherwise, you might end up buying 50% more stuff, as your rational selectiveness decreases
• Use a basket or small shopping card, rather than a big one. Doubling the size of the shopping cart leads to the shopper buying 40% more.

For more tips on how to save money shopping: How to Save Money On Groceries: Supermarket Tricks Costing You Money

#3 Release Those Feel Good Neurochemicals

Exercise releases feel-good neurochemicals such as serotonin and dopamine. These are associated with pleasure. Once you get your kick from these, you will be less inclined to want to buy things so get that dose of fun.

Head straight for the gym or out for some exercise once time you get paid. This will push you into a health-focused mentality and distract you from unhealthy behaviours such as drinking away your money or buying junk food. Exercise is a keystone habit for many people and a consistent routine of exercise often triggers a number of other healthy habits. This might include more nutritional eating, engagement in fullfilling hobbies and less frivalous spending.

If you can’t make it that far, simply try the two-minute rule for habit building, try and exercise for 2 minutes by going for a walk, doing press-ups, squats or yoga.

#4 Allocate Some Fun Money

There is an entire school of psychology around the psychology of happiness called positive psychology. Research from this field indicates that you can in fact buy happiness. You just need to know how. As a result, I always factor in some fun money as part of my budget.

One of the perks of being financially organised is that you can spend money guilt-free on the things you enjoy. This is because you know you have saved, invested and paid your bills. Money management apps such as Snoop, help me to stay organised, track my spending. As a result I am always conciously aware of my money habits.

There are always digital banks such as Monese will can help you seperate your money into 10 different pots. Should you want to get a takeaway, go for a restaurant, or buy a new game console, this can come from spending pots such as ‘enjoyment’, ‘entertainment’ or fun purchases. Having an intention for your fun money can also direct and create an awareness of your spending. This will also prevent you from impulse buying and spending too much.

Should you feel you are slipping into impulse buying then apply a 24 or 48-hour waiting rule before making any purchase.

Final Thoughts On How To Save Money Each Month

You need to build positive money habits rather than committing to strict financial diets. These are doomed to fail for most people. In fact, there are 12 key money habits that can help you save more money for life.

However, If you do nothing else, remember to pay yourself first. This will set your intention for saving and everything else should start to fall into place. Getting into the habit of saving like this will help you to save money so that you don’t have to think about it.

Even if you don’t quite know what you want to save your money for right now, becoming the type of person that saves every month is the start of your financial journey. This is more important than any amount saved, even a bad month where you save £50 is good because it continues the habit streak. When you continue and develop this habit you will eventually build up a solid amount of money that gives you options in life and eventually financial freedom.