The Complete Beginner's Guide to Saving Money

Save money you spend on food by planning meals in advance and bulk-buying.

Always purchase generics when you can, because prepared food will always be much more expensive than the generic ingredients needed to make it. Preparing food in bulk and in advance also gives you the opportunity to plan ahead and be more accurate in your budget.

However, when buying in bulk be sure that any product you buy will get used before it goes bad - you won't save money if you have to throw stuff away.

Ditch the posh shops and let the retail markets become your new friends.

Or shop the discount racks at clothing stores. Items on clearance are marked down considerably and could save you 50% of the price.

Try to stop using credit cards.

They are quite dangerous when you want to start saving up money, because you don't know exactly how much is in there. Therefore, it is easier to overspend.

If you have cash, you can see your cash supply running low as the money is leaving your wallet. If you are not able to eliminate the use of credit cards completely, try to restrict it as much as you can.

Consider all your expenses and see if you need all the things you have.

Can you live without cable or satellite TV? Can you restrict eating out? If your answer is yes, give this things up. You will see how much money you will save.

Write down how much money you spend every month on a given item every month, e.g. how much money goes to pay your bills and how much is spent on clothes etc.

Then try to restrict all the expenses you can and think up a low, but realistic amount of money you can spend on them, e.g. $20 per month for sweets.

Try writing down all your expanses regularly.

You need to compare how much you earn and how much you spend. Write down everything you spend your money on for a couple weeks and be as detailed as possible.

Do not remember to put down the things on which you spend money. You can either put a suitable amount of money in a small notebook after every purchase or collect bills and look through them at the end of every week; whatever works better for you.

While looking at your bills try to figure out how much you can save per week, month or paycheck.

It is a good idea to save the same amount each period. Also remember to adjust the amount of money you save e.g. every month to your own financial abilities: for one person it is nothing to save $300 every month, for others it is impossible.

Start to collect your bills and compare them. See how much you spend on e.g. electricity and how much on your personal items. Think if you really need all the things you buy, or maybe some of them are not really necessary for your everyday life and you could easily do without them.

First of all, you need to set saving goals, which means stating why do you need money and how fast.

Decide if your goals are short-term (e.g. buying a new TV) or long term (saving money for a new house). The shorter the term, the less planning it requires.

Or maybe you just want to simply save some money for no particular goal - then your strategy also needs to be different.