How To Save As Much Money As Possible From My Salary?

[mkanzari]

I have 10 months of work, which's my first work experience, and during this period I haven't saved anything in my bank account. I spend all of my salary on rent, which represents 32% of it and the rest in the daily expenses. I want a way to keep as much money as possible because I really need it to do many things.

[Buenchico]

There are only three ways that you can increase your disposable income (which you can then choose to save, if you want to):

1. Get a higher salary (either by seeking promotion with your existing employer or by looking for a new job) ;

2. Find a way of obtaining additional income (e.g. by using your IT skills for some freelance work 'on the side' or by getting a part-time job somewhere) ; or

3. Working out how to economise on your outgoings.

As numbers 1 and 2, above, aren't easy options (especially with the currently worsening employment situation), it's almost certainly number 3 that you should be concentrating on. You need to start recording absolutely everything that you spend money on and then, perhaps at the end of a week, sitting down to work out how you could actually spend less.

You might well find that it's little things that can make the difference. e.g. if you spend £2.50 each working day on a coffee from somewhere like Costa, you could cut that down to about 10p per day simply by taking a jar of instant coffee and a pint of milk to work with you. Based on working 45 weeks of the year, you'd end up saving £540 annually. If you currently spend £4 per working day on lunch, but switch to taking sandwiches to work (costing you perhaps £1.50 per day at the most), that's another £560 saved.

So just saving on lunch and coffee could save you £1100 per year which (because you lose 32% of your gross pay in Income Tax and National Insurance) is equivalent to being given a pay rise of around £1600.

Similarly, if you currently go to the pub three nights a week, and spend a tenner each time, cutting that down to just two nights per week will save you around £500 per year. (It doesn't take a mathematical genius to work out that you'd save about £1000 a year by cutting it down to just one night per week).

If you largely live on ready meals (or, from a financial viewpoint, far worse, takeaways), learn to cook. I can knock up a decent two course meal for no more than £1.50, which is a good deal cheaper than getting a takeaway Indian meal or going to the chippy! Set rules for yourself such as 'only one takeaway per fortnight'.

Look at what else you're spending money on too. For example, if you've got Sky TV (or similar), do you really need it? (There have been countless posts on this site from people who've decided to ditch Sky and just stick with Freeview). Even if you've only got the basic Sky package, that will save you £300 per year.

Get started on listing everything that you spend money on!

[JimF]

Chris, I think you'll find that the OP is from across the pond, so unlikely to know what the chippy is...

[Old_Geezer]

Going to the frenchfryie then.

[Bazile]

JimF

How did you know that ?

[JimF]

By his usage of US spelling in his other post; "labor", "specialize" etc.

[AuntPollyGrey]

One does not need to live in the US to use their spellings -just have an English Teacher that is from the US. Sounds more like they are in an Asian country to me.

Best way to save is to try and put 10% of your wages away every month. Write down all of your expenditure, to the last penny (cent) and see how you can cut costs. As buenchico wrote - there are many ways to economise on day to day expenses,the first step being know exactly how much things are costing. If you have to buy your coffee and meals give yourself a cash budget each week. Its amazing how much harder it is to spend hard cash than just putting it on the card.