Top 5 tips for saving money

Have you entered the new year with a resolution to improve your savings? Or are you dreaming of buying a house, upgrading your car, or putting money aside for the next big purchase?

Saving money during a cost-of-living crisis is no easy feat and it can often be tricky and overwhelming to know where to begin. So, we’re here to help with our top 5 tips for successfully reaching your savings goals this year.

Our top tips for saving your money

1.      Set a goal and get started

The best way to be more successful with your savings is to set meaningful goals that will help you stay motivated and give yourself a sense of accomplishment. Goals should also be measurable and achievable, and it’s no different for savings goals.

To get started, write down the goals you want to achieve. Your goal might be to reach an amount of savings to go towards your first home deposit by the end of year, or maybe you’ve booked a holiday that requires you to have a specific amount of savings.

Once you’re set on your goals, get started with your savings right away. Saving money is a habit and like all habits, getting started is often the hardest step. So, start putting some money into your savings account today, no matter how big or small the amount is.

Remember that the first $1,000 will likely be the hardest $1,000 you will save. And, when earning interest, money makes money!

Extra tip: You can open a savings account with Dosh in a few minutes and doesn’t involve having to go to your local bank. Just download the Dosh app, complete registration, and choose add account to open a Strive savings account. A Strive savings account even let’s you set a savings goal and easily track your progress along the way.

2.      Choose the right account for you

There are many different savings accounts available in the market, and it pays to take time to choose the right account to best meet your goals and financial situation. Two important considerations are the rate of interest you will earn, and the flexibility on accessing the money should you need it.

Term deposits generally pay of higher rate of interest and lock your funds in for a specific period of time.

Savings accounts that allow you to access your funds generally pay a lower interest rate, and some providers place restrictions on the number of withdrawals, or fees for withdrawing your money.

Make sure to do your research on the best account for your situation.

With Dosh Strive savings accounts, our aim is to provide a high rate of interest for growing your savings, while enabling full flexibility on access to your funds. Strives accounts have no limitations on the number of withdrawals in a month, and no fees for taking money out of the account. See here for more information.

Dosh is not a registered bank. Your funds are held on trust at a registered New Zealand bank, segregated from the corporate money Dosh uses to run our business.

3. Manage your money to hit your budget

Setting a budget is an important step to having control of your finances and meeting your money goals. Once set, the next challenge is keeping to the budget.

There are plenty of great tools and ideas out there to help manage your money.

Maybe you saw the recent trend of putting money aside for bills by placing cash in envelopes? Good idea, but now we live in a digital world, so Dosh developed Stash accounts.

Designed to help you manage your budget, easily open Stash accounts in app and personalise each one with a name, colour and emoji. Rent, power, fun money? It’s all up to you!

Sticking to you budget will minimise the risk of dipping into your Strive savings account to fund your overspending.

4.      Small change can make a big difference

Better managing your spending is the easiest way to set money aside for your savings. Small, regular items can surprisingly add up to a big amount each year. Coffees, buying your lunch, and takeaways can all add up to thousands of dollars each year.

Small changes to your spending habits can make a big difference, so take some time to write down how much you spend each week on these items. Times the total amount by 52 to get an annual spend. We think you’ll be surprised by the total amount, and therefore the opportunity to adjust spending and increase your savings.

From there, you can make smaller goals each week that will help you achieve your long-term goals.

5.      Review your subscriptions

Subscriptions are the go-to model for many businesses these days. Why? Because they are easy to set up and you need to take action to stop them. Making it easy to forget that the money is coming out of our account every month.

Try making a full list of all the subscription services you pay for today.

·        How many underutilised subscription services do you have today?

·        Do you really need more than one streaming service?

·        What is the total cost of these services – annual cost, not monthly.

·        How much could you put towards your savings by cancelling one or more of these services.

This way you can further understand where your money is going and how much you end up paying over the year. Minimising the number of subscription services can help you set aside money for your savings.

Extra tip: Some services offer a cheaper price for an annual subscription. If you have any subscriptions you don’t want to part ways with, check to see if they offer a discount for longer subscriptions.

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We hope the above is useful information to set and slay for savings goals for 2024!

Note, the above information is a guide only and should not be relied on as personal advice it does not take into account your personal financial situation.

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