5 Easy ways to save money from your salary

In this post, I’m going to give my tips on how to save money from your salary, best of all they take little to no effort.

Do you want to save money, but find that at the end of every month, you have very little left to enable you to save anything?

If you have the right processes in place you save most of your money from your salary as soon as you get it instead of waiting for the end of the month.

A big mistake that we make is expecting that we will have anything left at the end of the month and then convincing ourselves that we can put this money to one side.

You might have several reasons for wanting to save money from your salary, and those reasons are perfectly valid, I say this not even knowing what your reasons are, why? because they are your reasons and no one should tell you that what you want isn’t worthwhile or a waste of money.

If you carry out a search online, you’ll probably find several rules for saving money such as the 50/30/20 rule while others suggest that you should be saving a certain percentage of your salary.

These rules are all very well and good, but when it comes down to it, they are not factor in the fact that life happens and for that reason, I would argue that there is no right or wrong answer as to how much you need to save from your salary every month.

In fact, I think that this is down to personal preference and ability and how much you feel comfortable saving.  

Your savings can be fluid and they can change from month to month.

I believe that being too rigid with your money only leads to unhappiness and that is not good for anyone, what is the point in having money if you are not happy when you have it.

Give yourself a reason

If I told you to save £200 this year, would you? probably not.

I haven’t given you a reason to, there’s no incentive and you don’t know what that money is going to be used for once you have reached that £200 target.

It is for that reason before you consider even starting to save money from your salary you need to decide what you are saving for.

Is it for a house deposit, a holiday, to invest in shares, retire early or pay your mortgage early it even might be saving for something to treat yourself?

Not only do you have to give yourself a reason you have to make sure it’s achievable.

Setting yourself an unachievable goal will only aid in the failure of any saving goal you might have.

So how can you save money from your salary?

Set up a standing order

If you’re paid on the same day every month or know roughly when you will be paid, then you could set up another account where you transfer a portion of your salary via standing order into it.

By doing this you will know that the money that you have in your income account is the money that you have to live off

Forget about the other account and only monitor it to ensure that you are meeting your savings target.

Make a budget

When we hear the word budget the first thing that springs to mind is the boredom that is associated with it

Having to sit down, work out your monthly expenditure and then set a plan for how much you are going to spend on a certain category.

You probably lost the will just reading that sentence above.

Unfortunately, budgets are a necessary evil if you are looking to save any kind of money from your salary.

The important thing to remember and many won’t agree, life sometimes happens which means that your budget is blown out of the water and that’s okay and you shouldn’t beat yourself up for not being able to stick to a budget.

So long as the expense was something that was a necessity then there is no reason that a budget can’t be fluid.

Track your spending

I’ve always had one eye on what I spend and technology has made tracking your spending a lot easier.

Whether you prefer a spreadsheet or an app on your phone, knowing what is coming in and going out is going to allow you to make adjustments to what you can do with your money enabling you to save something from your salary

I’m an iPhone user and use a couple of apps to track my spending, one manual and the other connected to my bank.

My manual app is called accounts tracker pro, I use a manual app, as it gives me a little bit more confidence that when I come to reconcile my bank account at the end of the week I have some control as to what the end of the month might look like.

Make saving automatic

You probably think that I’m repeating myself in saying making saving automatic as I have already mentioned setting up a standing order, but this is somewhat different as I’m suggesting that you use an app (surprise surprise)

I use plum, but in using it I am effectively saving for my known expenses, otherwise known as a sinking fund

There are a few apps that do this, but I personally use Plum. I set it up to make a payment on payday and then it monitors my account to see how much it can take from my account to add to my pockets.  

Pockets are essentially those things that I’m saving up for, so car payments, Christmas dinner, vets bills and presents for my kid’s birthdays and Christmas

Plum is free, but they also offer a paid version which gives you a few added extras over the free version, such as the number of pockets, investments and cashback

Cut down your spending

There, I said it.  

We call like to buy that one thing now and again that we probably didn’t need and there’s nothing wrong with that, it only becomes an issue when 1) we can’t really afford it and 2) it stops us from achieving another goal, which in this case is saving some of the money from our salary that we have worked so hard for.

You’ll see that I’ve suggested that you cut down, not cut out your spending.  

A little of what you like isn’t going to do any harm, but you have to take a serious look at what you are spending on and see if there is anything that you can cut back on.

You might even be able to save on your bills to save some money.

Are you spending too much on utilities, do you need all of those tv subscriptions services or is your car meeting your needs or is it something to be seen in to impress your neighbours who probably don’t particularly care what you have because they are too busy getting on with their lives?

How much of your salary should you save?

There are too many debates and savings rules that people subscribe to, but my take on it is that so long as you are saving and making a habit of it, does it matter how much you are saving?

First and foremost I would always suggest that the first thing that you want to save is an emergency fund. This is a pot of money that you can utilise should the unexpected happen, some might call it a contingency fund.

If we’ve learnt anything this past year it is to always expect the unexpected.

Once you’ve saved enough into an emergency fund that you feel comfortable with, then it’s time to start making your money work for you.  

Starting an ISA if you haven’t already and maybe also looking at starting to invest some that that money that you save into stocks.

I currently have an ISA with Fidelity but also put money into a Trading 212 account, though this isn’t a huge amount as I’ve only just started doing it.

In conclusion 

Anyone can save money from their salary, you just need to be realistic as too much that will be.

Using the right tools to ensure that your savings are happening without much effort on your part and preferably at the beginning and end of the month will see you using your money as effectively as you can.