Christmas is coming round the corner faster than an Amazon PRIME delivery.
And with that, comes the pressure to spend, spend, spend.
We are constantly bombarded with marketing messages, but never more so than during the holiday season.
So, you’ve got savings goals. How do you stick to them?
Here’s what I’ve been doing (successfully)
1. Print out a picture
I used to want to be a missionary pilot, so I printed out a quarter million dollar float plane and pasted it on my bathroom mirror. Ambitious? Yes, and it worked. I’d hit the restroom late at night, see that picture, and be re-motivated to get back to work.
2. Think of your Grandparents
My grandparents lived through the depression and to this day my Grandma is one of the most frugal people I’ve ever met.
She’s also one of the happiest.
3. Make it a competition
I love competition. When it comes to saving money, I’ve been trying to make a competition with myself to see how much I can save each month, and try to improve on that number each month.
4. Think of your future (grand)kids
Every time I’m tempted to buy something I don’t need, I think of my kids.
What? “Debtkid, you don’t have any kids!” you say?
Yeah, but I will someday.
5. Think of who you could support
I’ve got 2 friends who are doing fantastic work in the non-profit world. I would love to be able to support them financially someday.
Can’t do that if you’re broke.
6. Make it automatic
Set up your monthly or weekly savings draft and forget it. Done.
7. Write down your savings goal
Seriously, write it down on a sheet of paper. I’ve had a sheet of paper at my office since January with my savings goal on it. And you know what’s funny, I’m on track to hit that goal almost EXACTLY.
It’s amazing how much psychology plays into our ability to save and resist spending. Write down your dream savings goal for the month/year and just see what happens.
How do you motivate yourself to save?
Twitter says….
@nodebtplan – Goals are all the motivation I need to save. Run basic math to figure out how much to save to reach a goal by a certain date.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I motivate myself by understanding the END GOAL in mind, and that is having 100% financial freedom by age 45. With the end goal in mind, saving becomes so easy.
One thing I like to do is to set up a very accurate projection of my income and expenses going at least a year into the future. The expenses I use are standard ones with some wiggle room and an allocation towards disposable income. If i diverge from my budget the long term numbers can really help illustrate what potential savings I’ve lost over the long term.
By keeping up with every single penny that comes in and goes out. An excellent way of doing this and knowing what if any excess you may have try the envelope budgeting system. It’s free, it’s easy and it’s a good way to set and keep a budget and to keep from over spending on unnecessary things.
I used to go to this blog to read about personal story. Recently it has become a combination of promotions for some web-related financial services and lists of things (most of which I just skip).
Do you think it is interesting to read this suff? There are personal posts from time to time, but they became rare, it is mostly promotions of one or another kind. Why do you think people go to this blog – to read advertisements? And to read ads from a person who is deeply in debt?
I understand that you get some money from those endorsements and it goes towards debt, but it should not take most of the space of the blog.
Ouch, I thought this was a more personal post. This post was just supposed to be a resourceful ask the audience type post…
I guess the reality is my life has gotten pretty boring. I work, I save money, I have a girlfriend, life is good.
I think part of me doesn’t need to share as much here because I just don’t need too, and there really isn’t as much to share.
I pay my mom each month, $1,000. More some months, last month I sent her an $8,000 check. So that debt is getting chipped away nicely.
I brought on a bunch of writers a few months ago, but the reality is that for the most part everyone one of them flaked out.
I dunno, what would you like to read?
Your own perspectives, and true life examples.
I think it’s ok for you to pimp credit cards and bank promos and stuff for you to make money if you want. Just add more personal stories.
Well, it might be boring to you, but I think it inspires a lot of people much more to see you getting out of debt, that was the whole purpose of the blog.
Monthly updates on finances would be very good. You were blogging about your business, that might be interesting too.
Try not to make it too generic – there are a million books on personal finance, the difference in the blog is the personal story.
That is my thinking anyway,
Good luck!
By never expecting others to support or subsidize me in any way – both today and in the future when I eventually retire.
Best,
Len
Len Penzo dot Com
i have my financial goals printed out on a large paper that i have hang on my wall so that everytime i sit down to work, i look up and see what i am working towards. Works very well because my business is growing at a somewhat steady pace. I also read a lot to keep my mind open and dreaming lofty dreams about how fun life would be when i have achieved all the things that i had set for myself
Just fyi, I disagree with Romario. And not just because I’m one of the writers who flaked out.
Seriously, though, my current method is via my Excel geekiness. I went through the next few months and, week by week, figured out how much was coming in and how much needs to go out. Based on those numbers, I approximated payments — I’m sure some weeks will be over, some under — and was able to map out when we’d be done paying off our debt.
Granted, things rarely go according to plan, but I think it’s relatively close to what reality will be. And it has us paying off one card at the end of January. By the end of February, we’ll be down under $4,000 on the other card. I try not to speculate much further down the road than that, since I’m getting the impression my contract work may get cut off within the next 4-6 months. But if it’s able to last through April, we could be free of credit card debt by the end of April, or at least by our 2nd anniversary in mid-May.
That really sparked my determination to keep plugging away at the debt.
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