Saving When You Can

When going to college and working a job, or two, on top of paying for school, bills, and food, it can become a handful and sometimes it can be hard at times when budgeting your money. There are a lot of ways to start budgeting your money, but different methods work better for different people. So, what are some of the different budgeting methods that people use?

 

Needs, Wants, Save

If you’re going down the needs, wants, and savings route, this was the first method I was taught growing up. Whenever you get a paycheck, people say that you should be splitting up how much money you put away. They say that 50% of your paycheck should be going toward your needs which includes your bills, food, and gas. 30% of your paycheck should be towards your wants, which are your fun activities such as eating out, going to see a movie, or buying that one thing on Amazon. The last 20% of your paycheck should be going into your savings. When you do that, you’re slowly building up your savings account and you don’t want to touch it unless an emergency comes up or you’re saving money towards a big investment.

 

Creating a Budget

When creating a budget, it will be your own design, so not everyone's is going to look the same. Sometimes that could just be not splitting up your check when you get it and you just pull from it for the things that you need and if you have stuff leftover to put into savings you can, but that’s not always the case. Something that I’ve been seeing a lot of whenever I’ve scrolled through TikTok has been a budget binder. A budget binder is just a binder that you can label all the different storage slots with different needs or stuff that you want and you can set cash aside into each of these slots and can pull from them when it’s needed. I think this is a cool method and I’m looking at buying my own for when I move.

 

Reduce Your Spending

Sometimes the best way to save your money is by reducing how money you spend. If you’re tight on money and you’re the type to go out and spend a lot, think about if you really need it. If it’s a need then yes, buy what you need, but if you love going out and buying coffee every morning, or you always go out drinking over the weekend, think about ways you can save your money by, buying stuff and having it at home. When you do that, you’re not going out and spending money, but you’re also still making it for yourself to enjoy.