How to Save Money and Build your Emergency Fund
If you’re like me you’ve been in a constant state of wishing you had more money. Money is so important to me. It’s a security blanket if you will. It’s the way I feed my family. It ensures we have a roof over our head. I’ve made it a life long goal to have money in an emergency fund. I have a partial one started but it’s not fully funded yet. I’ve not made it a priority either. I need to make it a priority. It’s up to me to make sure we have money in case of an emergency. So if I’m not making enough money to put any back then I need to get a side hustle. That means I work the job I have and get an additional job so that I can use that money to put back for the unexpected.
Let’s learn how to save money and build your emergency fund.
Other ways to save money and build your emergency fund.
I love the ideas for saving money monthly. There are so many things you can do. You can utilize your library or the Overdrive app to download books from your library. You can plant a garden to cut down on your grocery budget. You can brew your coffee at home instead of paying $5 a cup for overpriced coffee. This is all from the infographic. What else can you do to save money monthly?
Once you begin making cutbacks you can begin to add that money to your bank account each week. You can do the backward method where you start out putting $52/week in your savings and by the time the year is up you’re putting in just $1. At the end of that year, you have $1378 in savings. Super easy way to do it if you are able. Or you can divide the $1378 by 52 and do a slightly smaller amount each week for the same results. It’s so important to be prepared for any event. You never know when the next medical emergency will be.
It also helps to keep your expenses in line. For instance, our mortgage payment with property taxes and insurance is right at 25% of our take home pay. When you keep your expenses low you are doing yourself a huge favor. It’s so nice to know you can pay the bills should something happen. We also evaluated our expenses to see where we could save. We realized we could live without cable and save $150 month. That’s like getting a raise. It’s amazing what we pay for. Well, we finally reached a point where we decided we weren’t getting that much out of it and we ditched it for good. I’m so glad we did. Any bills you can cut or reduce are a plus to your wallet. Now we can put that money back into our savings. Did you know that if you put $125 a month away for 10 years you’ll have $15000 in your savings account! Let’s make it a point to save! Your mind will be eased when you know the bills will be paid.
Some other ideas to save money are to:
- stop going through the drive through for dinner and make your dinners at home.
- make sure you are drinking water instead of expensive coffees or sodas.
- do your workout at home instead of at the gym. With Youtube there is no reason why you can’t workout at home.
- round up when you do spend. Instead of writing in 23.44 round up to 25 and put the rest in savings each time you spend.
- check that you are getting the best deals on insurance by getting quotes from other companies.
- give yourself a budget for groceries and stick to it. If you only have $300 for groceries then do not spend $301. Only spend what you have!
These are very easy ways to put money back into your emergency fund. In this day and age we need all the help we can get. Inflation is out of control and you have to save where you can.
These are great tips. I also use a change bank that I use when we go on vacation for our spending money. You’d be surprised how change adds up
These are such great tips! Everyone thinks you have to put back a ton of money to save, but every penny helps!
Thank you so much for sharing all this great information. Saving is one of the most important things to do and the one we do least.
I need to employ these tips. We save some, but we could always stand to save more. Thanks!
Thankfully we got out of debt and were able to start a fund for buying a house. On top of paying all our bills, and putting away money for college. It took a few decades though!
Budgeting and finances can overwhelm many people, so these tips are great. Even the slight adjustments you mentioned can equal substantial savings.
Having an emergency fund is so important. I know so many people who don’t have one and that can be scary!
I love those 52-week money challenges! They’re awesome and I often Pin them because I think they’re so brilliant and are a true reflection on how bills and purchases can add up – better to save!
I like your style.
Your savings chart sure makes it believable that one CAN save a decent amount of money in a year.
My husband and I are quite the minimalists, so I think this can help us to apply information from your site.
These are really great tips! I would love to try this challenge with my kids to help them learn to save money.
We’ve had some unplanned expenses this year. Car issues, broken appliances. It is so stressful, but having a little bit saved certainly helps take the sting away. Great tips for building an emergency fund.
We’re working on this now. It’s a lot harder than it sounds or looks.
This is very helpful, especially after tax season. Working from home has it’s downfalls, but I think these tips could really help me.
My son is doing the 52 week challenge and so far he’s doing good. He is saving for a Christmas fund. I have no idea what he intends to buy this Christmas but I guess it is something big if he’s that serious in saving. I do a forced savings arrangement with my bank. Every time I get my salary, my bank deducts a certain fixed amount and puts it into my time deposit account. It works for me because it is easier to part with money you haven’t gotten the chance to hold/put in your purse.
This is a good initiative by Regions Bank. The best way to start saving is to be educated on the most effective way to do it. I hope a lot of people will attend the financial education event and breakfast.
These are definitely some great ways to save money. We have a program that rounds up our purchases and puts that amount in investments.