Easy ways to Help Your Money Grow
Easy ways to help your money grow
One of the most common questions I get contacted about other than how to make extra money, is how to manage the money we do have. Of course, making extra money on the side is great, but in order to help your money grow it needs to be managed carefully. Ever heard the expression “easy come, easy go?”
Here’s 5 easy ways you can help your money grow, whatever your budget.
Have a long term goal
Whether this is to pay off debts as fast as possible, pay off a mortgage, or save up for a house deposit, having a long term goal in mind is a great way to motivate your money management. Visualising the goal with a printable chart such as these from Clever Girl Finance is a simple but effective way to track your progress – each time you hit a goal, such as 1% of your savings total, you colour in a portion of the chart.
This is a super easy way to motivate you to save as much as you can!
Budget, budget, budget!
No matter what your income, a budget is essential in ensuring you can live within your means. However, a survey revealed a shocking 56% of UK adults do not have a budget, and a further 17% do not have any savings whatsoever.
Creating a budget can be as simple as grabbing a calculator (use your phone app if you don’t have one) and a notepad and pen. Deduct all your fixed expenses from your income, and you’ve made a start on knowing how much of your income is already earmarked for bills.
Of course, you can take this further by budgeting for every single expense, or at least earmarking an amount of cash for “spending money”.
You can even use a spreadsheet for your budget if you prefer to go digital, but as a starting point a notebook is definitely better than no budget at all!
Use a Savings Calculator to motivate you
Once you have a budget sorted, you can begin to look at what you are able to save each month. Even if this is just a small amount, it is still worth saving. Let’s imagine you could only save £40 a month. You might think, there’s no point, and add the extra £40 into your spending budget.
At the end of 12 months, that extra £40 a month might have got you a couple of takeaways, or a few extra bits and pieces, but if you had saved it, you would be almost £500 better off! This would definitely pay for my Christmas expenses, or maybe even a weekend away.
Using a savings calculator like this is a great way to visualise just how much you can save on a more long term basis. It will even calculate the interest rate for you too. Playing around with the numbers and seeing the difference an extra £10 would make would definitely motivate me to tray and save more instead of spending it too!
Automate your savings
As well as manually saving towards a long term goal, I personally love using savings automations. These clever tools save small amounts for you without you even noticing!
One of my favourites is Plum which enables me to pay for Christmas by saving up my spare change for me and putting into a separate account. I have paid for Christmas this way for 3 years now and it is definitely an easy way to help your money grow.
Additionally, I use the automations on my Starling Smart Bank Account to round up every transaction to the nearest £1 and set the difference aside for me. This saves me around £25, which comes in handy and builds up quickly!
Allow yourself to be realistic
It’s great to want to save as much money as possible, or plough as much as we can into paying off debts early. However, just like crash dieting, the results of “crash budgeting” and be short lived and often frustrating.
Let’s imagine that after essentials and savings or debts you only gave yourself £50 a month to spend on yourself. Some people may be able to do this no problem, but for others it could mean missing out on social activities that ultimately makes you feel more miserable.
Even worse, you may decide to spend more and use credit in order to cover it, thus creating a bigger debt.
It is much more sensible to be realistic about your spending and have a limit that works for you, while still allowing you to help your money grow and enjoy life at the same time!
