Managing your money in a recession: How to start saving your hard earned money?

Considering the growing global economic crisis and tight economy, it is time to revisit some old saving measures for managing our money in a recession. As you are aware that the price of food, clothing, grocery or household items, and petrol is contributing to the high cost of living in general, pushing all world markets higher, so an effective measure to maintain our household economy beyond the economic crisis is reduction of personal expenditures on which we have our own control. Indeed, the current situation warrants frugality, especially if you want to survive problematic financial circumstances in the future, so that while reaching those million dollars in earnings that we pray to God every night, we can resort to some old and good saving measures in order to keep a control on our long-cherished extravagant spending habits. I know there are many people who will find the below tips forceful or useless but when they will utilize these tips in their daily life, they will obtain benefits which they would not have thought of before. I admit that personal savings need a lot of sacrifice but this sacrificing for things, which are not required at the moment, pays off well in this time of tight economy. I am not writing these tips to force anyone but I am writing these tips to serve as a guide to start saving your hard earned money plus I am writing these because I am applying these in my personal life.

Managing your money in a recession: How to start saving your hard earned money: Tip #1: Say no to junk food – Two benefits – Healthy life plus personal savings

Yes, I said that. Stop spending your money on soda vending machines and chips. One moment, it does not stop there. No ice cream, candies, chocolates, burgers, and so on. No matter by midmorning our stomach will start contracting and will demand a snack with persistent cracks, so never mind to have some cookies that will produce a warm feeling like a grandma’s hug and will cost less. The point here is that reducing or eliminating these unnecessary expenditures will positively affect our finances each month and will also help us live a healthy life by avoiding junk foods, which cause problems like irritable bowel syndrome and constipation or diarrhea. Rather we can cook some good food at home, which will let us remain healthy plus frugal in this time of recession.

Managing your money in a recession: How to start saving your hard earned money: Tip #2: Stop eating frequently at restaurants

I understand that nobody wants to stop eating at restaurants but what about untimely visits to the restaurants. Many of us visit restaurants on a regular and frequent basis. I am just telling you to avoid doing this. Again the benefits will include acquiring good food habits by avoiding frequent visits to the restaurant and by eating at home and also saving some money in this tight economy. We can plan to visit restaurants on a timely basis like visiting some good restaurants twice or thrice a month. People who cannot resist going outside for trying different types of foods and recipes will definitely benefit from limiting their visits. Your monthly budget will definitely improve by doing this plus you will live a long life by eating good quality food at home.

Managing your money in a recession: How to start saving your hard earned money: Tip #3: Shopping for things, which are really necessary.

There are many people around the world who cannot visit a mall or a shopping store without buying something and there are also people who just do “window shopping” and only buy things, which are really required or are necessary. In this time of tight economy, people who resist from buying each and everything they just want to buy are considered to be smart people whereas people who cannot stop from buying anything they place an eye on are not smart enough. It is just a matter of how disciplined you are and how you think about your personal finances and family responsibilities, so if you will just shop for things which are really necessary in this time of recession, you will definitely acquire benefits from that.

Above were three tips to start saving your hard earned money in this time of tight economy and recession. Now, I will tell you how to apply or use these tips in your personal life and start some savings. Actually, you should set examples in front of your family members. You cannot force your wife or children to use these tips in their daily life but you can on your own start doing these to set examples in front of them. For example, when you will start doing using tip #1, i.e., “saying no to junk food”, you will start saving some money each month. Think like you started saving 50 dollars per month doing tip #1. Now, do not spend that money for 5 months. Now your total savings come to 50 x 5 = 250 dollars. From these extra 250 dollars you saved in 5 months, buy a small gift or present for your wife. It can be anything, a digital camera, small gold earrings, a small sound system, or anything and when you will present any one of these to your wife, tell her how you saved that money because you love her and tell her about these tips and then the next thing will happen is that your wife will start thinking over it and will try to follow your example. Now also do the tip #2 and tip #3, one by one with your kids. Now in the same way, your children will follow your examples and then when all of you will start savings, the savings will get doubled and tripled over a course of few months. Remember, forcing someone to do something never pays off but setting examples like these and thinking positive works wonders. So start saving and managing your money in a recession and be happy and healthy.

P.S:  This is the month of December and I know in this month full of holidays, Christmas and New Year, we cannot use these tips and it also will not look nice enough if we will do these right now because our family can think that we have become very stingy. What we can do is spend our holidays together with our family and enjoy and spend money as usual and start applying these tips from the first of New Year after the auspicious and joyful holidays are over.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.