How to Save Money: 6 Step-by-Step Ways to Bank Cash Every Month

Take a moment. Think about being your best self — living your best life.

What do you really want to do with your life? Raise a happy family? Travel the world? Buy a nice house? Start your own business?

Reality check: To accomplish any of those things, you’re going to need to save money.

Table of Contents 

Step 1: Develop Savings Goals and Strategies
Step 2: Pick Budgeting and Debt Repayment Methods
Step 3: Choose a Financial Institution and Accounts
Step 4: Automate Your Finances
Step 5: Establish a Budget-Conscious Lifestyle
Step 6: Make More Money

Here Are Our Best Tips to Save Money

Are you ready to actually start saving? What you’re reading is a step-by-step guide on how to do it — how to come up with savings strategies, choose a budgeting method, pick the right financial institution, automate your finances and live a budget-conscious lifestyle.

Pour yourself a cup of coffee and buckle up. It’s time to get serious about this.

Step 1: Develop Savings Goals and Strategies

You’re probably asking yourself, “How much should I save?”Your first move is to set specific savings goals for yourself — emphasis on specific. Naming your goals will make them more real to you. It’ll help you resist the temptation to spend your money on other stuff.

Step 2: Pick Budgeting and Debt Repayment Methods

It’s time to start making a monthly budget and sticking to it — especially if you have debt.

This way, you can put savings right into your budget. It’s never an afterthought.

Here are five different budgeting methods. We can’t tell you which one to choose. Be honest with yourself, and choose the one you think is most likely to work for you. This is how you save money on a tight budget.

The 50/30/20 Rule

This one was popularized by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a bankruptcy expert, and her business-executive daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi.

Split your income into three spending categories: 50% goes to essential bills and monthly expenses, 20% toward financial goals and 30% to personal spending (all the stuff you like to spend money on but don’t really need). Put the money earmarked for your financial goals into a separate savings account.

Step 3: Choose a Financial Institution and Accounts

You might be thinking, I already have a bank. And of course you do. If you’re like most of us, you’ve had the same bank for years.Most people don’t give this a second thought. They figure it’s too inconvenient to switch. But it’s worth shopping around for a better option, because where you bank can make a real difference in how much you save.

Step 4: Automate Your Finances

That’s right. We’re deep into the 21st century, here, so make technology do the work for you.You’ll save time, and time is money. Here are a few money-management steps you can take today to ensure you won’t have to think about money for more than a few minutes every month.

Step 5: Establish a Budget-Conscious Lifestyle

Here’s the harsh reality: To save more money, you’ll need to spend less money. (Or make more money, but we’ll get to that next.)That doesn’t mean you have to live like a monk. Nor do you have to survive on ramen noodles and the dollar menu, wear scuffed shoes and patchy clothes, or cut your own hair with hedge clippers.You just have to be smart and strategic. Here are some of our best tips to help you spend less

Step 6: Make More Money

You won’t get rich taking surveys, but if you’re just vegging out on the couch, why not click a couple buttons and earn a few bucks? We’ve tried a lot of paid survey sites, and two of the best we’ve found are My Points and InboxDollars.