Save Money Consistently: Pay Yourself First!

Have you ever wanted to get better at saving money? We all have the intention to set money aside, but who is actually hashtag adulting the right way? I'll give you an answer. It's the ones who pay themselves first. Hey, what's up? It's Justine with Debt Free Millennials, the channel for all things millennial and money. And today I want to talk about how to save consistently so that you're paying yourself first. So we all want to save money consistently, but very few of us actually know how to do it. I was thinking about my own savings goals and how I've been lately just hitting them consistently every single time. And I wanted to share a few ideas with you on how you can also implement these savings tips no matter where you're at in your debt-free journey and managing money. So the first takeaway is don't save for the sake of saving. You know, a lot of us really, when I talk about savings with other people, a lot of us are like, yeah, I would love to save money and have some set aside. But if your savings goals are vague, then your saving habit will also be vague. In other words, you need to get crystal clear on what it is that you're actually saving for. Do you want to buy a house? Do you want to save up for a new car? Maybe you want to really build up a vacation fund so that you always have the money ready to go when a good deal on a flight pops up. So how much do you need for these goals? When do you need the money by? How much do you need to set aside each month in order to hit your savings goal date? These are the questions that you need to ask yourself before you can actually start setting aside money every month. When you get crystal clear on what your money goals are, end up saving more consistently and holding yourself accountable. You can actually visualize where that money is going. And brownie points, if you set up a separate savings account for that goal, you're more likely to stick to saving for that goal consistently. All right, so the next idea that I want to share is don't wait to save after spending. Rather, you need to save before you spend. If you take your paycheck and you get paid on a Friday and you end up going to the mall, going to the bars, eating out at Chipotle, picking up a couple of Starbucks and doing a massive Target run, pretty soon you're going to blow through the money that you previously thought you were going to set aside and save for. It's already been spent. Rather than spending and then saving after what you've spent, flip-flop that and pay yourself first. You're going to start with your savings goals and then you're going to spend what's left over. Always, always, always save before you spend. This is going to get you in the habit of how your paychecks are going to roll in and where that money is going to be allocated to as soon as you get paid. All right, one way that's really helped me save consistently is by automating transfers. What I mean by that is go inside of your checking account and what you're going to do is you're going to set up automatic contributions into your savings account, into that separate fund for whatever the money goal is that you're saving up for. When you set up automatic contributions, you can let it run. You don't have to worry about forgetting whether or not you put money aside for that separate savings goal. It's already set up for you. Let the bank systems do the work for you. I've done this for all of my retirement accounts, so I'm consistently saving for that. I've done this for my down payment on a house. I'm actively saving for 20% for that and every single month I've got it set up so that money is withdrawn from my checking account into that separate savings account. I don't even have to worry about it and I don't accidentally spend that money. So if you want to get into the habit of saving more consistently, take some time this week and write down all of your savings goals. What are some things that would get you really, really freaking excited if you had the cash ready to go on hand? What would just blow your mind if you had say $25,000 set aside for a new car and you could just take your time researching different cars and calling up dealerships or looking at pictures online because you already had the cash aside. Take some time to clarify your savings goals and I'd love to know, drop a comment below on what you're saving for actively this year. It's always really interesting to see what everybody is up to and where they're at on their path. Once you laser in on your goals, you end up holding yourself accountable and you get to save more consistently every single month. So if you want to have a for real talk about money conversations, consider liking and subscribing to the Debt Free Millennials channel where we talk about all things millennial and money and we'll catch you in the next video.