HOW TO SAVE MONEY

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It’s a lot easier to save if you know you have something to save for. Set yourself savings goals that are within your reach to motivate yourself to make the tough financial decisions needed to save responsibly. For serious goals like buying a house or retiring, your goals may take years or decades to achieve. In these cases, it’s important to monitor your progress on a regular basis. Big goals, like retirement, take a very long time to achieve.

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Give yourself time limits for achieving your goals can be a great motivational tool. For example, let’s say that you set a goal of being on your way to owning a house two years from today. In this case, you’d need to investigate the average home cost in the area you’d like to live in and start saving for the down payment on your new house (as a general rule, down payments are often required to be no less than 20% of the purchase price of the house). No matter how little you’re starting with, it’s always possible to begin saving money. The sooner you start, the sooner you can be on your way to financial security.

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If you’re discouraged about your financial situation, consider talking to a financial counselling service. These agencies, which often operate for free or very cheap, exist to help you begin saving so that you can meet your financial goals.

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If you’re having trouble saving money, it’s clever to start here. Many of the expenses that we take for granted are far from necessary. Eliminating luxury expenses is a great first step to improve your financial situation because this won’t impact your quality of life or your ability to work significantly. While it can be difficult to imagine life without a gas-guzzling car and a cable TV subscription, you may be surprised how easy it is to live without these things once you remove them from your life.