The majority of our members have less than £500 in their savings and we appreciate that saving regularly can be quite a challenge. However, it can be a great help if you have savings, not only to help deal with life’s emergencies when things break or go wrong but also for occasions like birthdays or Christmas.
Many people struggle to save as they get to the end of the month and see what money they have left and then decide whether or not to put that into a savings account. This is because when we have money left at the end of the month, we have to decide either to spend it now or save it for later!
The best way to start saving is to save as soon as you get paid. The tip to doing this is to arrange regular savings either through your pay if your employer offers a savings scheme, or to set up a standing order to your savings account. If you think you may have to dip into your savings, use a savings account with instant access so if you don’t think you can make it until next pay day, it doesn’t matter as you can withdraw it.
When you first make this change to your savings habit, you may need to transfer some savings back into your current account whilst you get used to the change in how you manage your money and that’s okay! – it’s simply important that you have tried to save. Try to set yourself a target each month to reduce how much you need to transfer back and question if you really need it – even if it’s only £5 a month difference you’re still making progress and you’re saving first as opposed to spending first.
Hopefully you’ll find that when you’ve been doing this for several months (or however long it takes) you’ll transfer smaller amounts back each month until you find that you can manage without transferring anything.
Other savings tips are to use our mobile app with the Wave Save Account as you can easily see your progress and you can set yourself goals on how much you’d like to save. Try saving regularly into your PrizeSaver Account, as it has the added bonus of being entered into a FREE Prize Draw where you could win up to £5,000.
It really doesn’t really matter how small the amount is that you can save each month – all that’s important is that you start saving so when any surprises come up you don’t need to panic as you have money saved to fall back on.
