3 Shortcuts for Saving Money Fast

Admit it, you’ve wondered:

“How do other people save money so quickly? And why do I save money at a snail’s pace?”

Don’t worry, I used to ask myself the same question. It was tough for me to find the willpower to aggressively save money quickly when I enjoyed overspending. But saving is a learned skill that we can all master by making some sacrifices.

And here are three shortcuts you can use to save money faster.

Break your goal into bite-size pieces

You must have a goal that motivates you if you want to save money quickly.

My past goal was saving enough money to leave a 9-5 job. It lit a fire under me and inspired me to save like no tomorrow.

Yours could be saving enough to buy a house, to raise children or buy a new car. Whatever the goal is, it has to be inspiring enough to push you into saving.

And once you set a goal, breaking it down into mini-goals makes it less daunting and attainable. For example, if you plan to save $5,000 in the next 12 months for a car, you should commit to putting away about $420 per month or $96 per week. The smaller your goal appears the more doable it seems and the quicker you can get into the saving mindset.

Identify your spending weaknesses

What holds us back from saving a lot of money fast?

Overspending.

Everyone has their own category where they spend more money than they should. For myself and my husband, entertainment (particularly eating out) is the spending weakness we kicked to the curb to really start saving money fast.

So locate your weaknesses to find extra money per month to devote to your savings goal. You can locate them by analyzing your bank statement and calculating how much you spend on areas like retail, entertainment, housing, food, etc.

Or if you have online banking, log in to your checking or credit card account and pull up the breakdown of expenses. We bank with Wells Fargo and our online account offers a detailed grouping of our expenses per category that makes locating where we’re overspending a breeze.

Trust me, you may be surprised to find out where all of your money is going during the month – we were. And that’s money you could be putting towards saving to reach your goal faster.

Automate your savings deposits 

Automation is my tried and true shortcut for saving fast. Don’t trust yourself to make deposits into your savings account manually.

If you leave it up to yourself to transfer money weekly or monthly there’s opportunity to forget or spend the money “by accident”.

Instead, set up an automated transfer from your bank account to a savings account to ensure the money you’re committing to save goes where it’s supposed to be.

I’ve used this method for years now and it’s always helped me stay on track. Sometimes I even forget I’m saving.

Another bonus of automation is that it cuts down on overspending. After all, you have to make sure the money is available in the checking account to be transferred. So you’ll always think twice before spending money when a transfer is pending.

Do you have any other tips for saving money fast? Share with use below.