3 Savings Hacks To Help You Reach Your Financial Goals

We’ve all got reasons to save up. Some save up for bigger purchases like laptops or a designer bag, some save up for travel, some save to invest, while some save just to have some moolah ready in case of a rainy day. Regardless, saving is one of the fundamentals of financial management and there really should be no buts or ifs.

If you’re finding it hard to start saving, here are three saving hacks that can help you get on that momentum.

Use a savings app

There is an app for almost anything that you can think off. With tons of saving apps out there, you can check out the best kind of app that will suit your needs.

If you’re lost in the sea of apps trying to figure out which one to start with, we recommend Digit, which is available for Apple and Android users. Digit connects to your bank account and uses a specialized algorithm that computes how much to deduct from your account every day to funnel into a savings account. Since you can’t really see the money going to your savings (if you don’t check, that is), you won’t really feel the pain of saving. You can try the app for 100 days free and if you like what it does, there’s a monthly fee that you’ll have to pay to continue using it.

Save the change

You can go the common route and throw your change at the end of the day inside your piggy bank. But a better way to save would be to round off all your purchases to the nearest bill, and then put the change into a separate wallet that should immediately be deposited to your savings account.

How it works? Easy. Carry two wallets, one for your spending money, one for your savings. Use a pouch for your change savings so you’ll be able to accommodate a lot of coins. So if you’re buying a cup of coffee for P125, you can round this off to P150 and then put the P25 change on your savings pouch. At the end of every week or fortnightly, deposit everything inside the savings pouch to your savings account.

Do the 52-week challenge

One of the most popular saving challenges is the 52-week challenge, which basically forces you to continue increasing the amount that you save every week. This takes a lot of commitment but the end results could be quite spectacular if you keep at it.

The 52-week challenge can be tailored-fit depending on your income bracket. But the basic rule is to increase the amount you save every week for the whole year. You can do it in P1, P5, P10, P20, or even P50 increments, which can yield different results at the end of the year. So for example, if you choose to follow the P50-increment per week, you will start this week by saving P50. Next week, you increase it by P50 and save P100. The next, you increase it again and save P150. Keep increasing the denomination that you save every week by P50 and you’ll end up at the 52nd week saving P2,600 with a total savings of P68,900.

Let the saving begin!