This is how I managed to save $9k dollars my first year in LA while only making $19k working side jobs. These are the same 5 steps you can take to begin saving money yourself regardless of how much you currently make. Enjoy! - be sure to follow me on IG: @shaunsurgener My first year in LA was TOUGH. I arrived with only $400 in my pocket and no job. This meant that I had to figure stuff out FAST. I landed some gigs and started making a small income but really struggled for the first couple months. I was left living paycheck to paycheck and constantly worried about not finding my next job.
I began studying successful people in finance, personal development, personal finances, investing, psychology, and anything that I thought could give me an edge in helping me figure out my situation..... I going to the library and checking out stacks of books reading at least 1 per week.
In this process I found a few things that really helped me go from struggling to actually SAVING MONEY-- and the crazy part was my income didn't increase. Here are the top 5 things that radically changed my situation
1) Mindset.
I honestly didn't realize how much my mindset was holding me back. I literally believed that I didn't make enough money to save-- and come to find out THAT SAME IDEA was one of the things really keeping me from actually saving money. You get what you believe in life. If you truly think you don't make enough to save, then you won't.
It wasn't until I switched my mindset from "I don't make enough money to save" to "Regardless of how much I make, I will save X dollars" that I actually began opening my mind to money saving ideas.
2) Reduce Housing Costs
Your housing costs are one of your biggest expenses in life. People who save money tend to keep their rent or mortgage to no more than 25% of their income. That means one weeks pay!!
There's lots of way to do this. You can get a roommate, rent out an extra room, sleep on a couch like I did for a year, or many other ways to keep the costs down. Saving even 300 a month on your housing can lead to 3600 a year in savings!
3) Reduce Food Costs
Food is another major expense we have and one that can fluctuate a lot depending on your habits. The best way to reduce your food cost is to first calculate how much you spend each month on food. From there create a goal on how much less you want to spend (10%, 20%, 30%,50%) OR set a goal for yourself. I set a goal for myself to spend only $5 a day. $1 for breakfast, 1-2 for lunch, and 2-3 for dinner. The more specific you get with your breakdown to more manageable and easier it is to achieve them.
4) Educate Yourself.
One of the biggest things I saw in all the successful people I studied was that they all had this in common: they were constantly learning. Make sure you are reading, listening, or watching things that will help you with your finances. I was very much inspired and learned a lot from various people via books at the library, youtube videos, podcasts, forums online, etc. If you commit to always learn new strategies you are much more likely to achieve your goals.
5) Pay Yourself First.
The reason why most people don't save money is because they don't budget for savings. One of the tricks that I learned from studying financially successful people is that they actually budget for saving by PAYING THEMSELVES FIRST. Most people just hope they have money left over at the end of the month.. which is my most people never save.
What the wealthy and financially successful people do is that they pay themselves first. They pre-determine how much they want to save each month based on their income, pay that to themselves first, then live off the rest. So if you make 4k a month and want to save 10% of that (400) then 4k-400 = 3600 to live on.
These 5 things were major contributors to my ability to save money and get ahead. The crazy part was that I wasn't making any more money when I was saving then when I wasn't. I had developed a better game plan.
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