There can be many reasons that move us to want to have extra money to meet the goals we set ourselves: a vacation, a new television, the children’s university, our retirement … However, it is not easy to know how much to save per month and what is the ideal amount if we want to achieve our financial goals.
How much do you have to save per month?
Two rules recommended by experts
The expenses and the salary level of each person will determine how much to reserve each month. However, we propose two general rules that will help you in the medium and long term to have the amount you want.
50/20/30 Rule: Some financial experts recommend that 50% of our income should be used for our basic expenses, 20% for savings and 30% for personal expenses.
10% rule: Others recommend allocating a fixed 10% of monthly net income to savings.
Although some rules can be determined, it must be taken into account that not all salaries can be adjusted to a specific one.
How to save money effectively
Even if we set ourselves a clear objective, being able to put it into practice implies control and, above all, a lot of perseverance. The reality is that unforeseen events and situations that involve unexpected expenses usually arise. However, if we want to be able to save part of our salary per month, it is important to follow some tips like the ones we present below:
Review monthly household expenses
Sometimes we don’t take the time to keep track of expenses. If we do a study, surely many of them could reduce them, especially the small ones (going to the movies, eating out, buying cigarettes, coffees, etc).
Check your telephone bills, and compare offers from the competition, many times we can achieve savings of up to $30 per month with a change of company, if we do the same with the gas or electricity company, we can save $500 in a year just with managing our fixed expenses correctly.
To plan
If we want our goal to be met, we will have to establish a well-quantified objective, therefore planning is essential. We can help ourselves with mobile applications or traditional methods that help us know how much money we can allocate to savings.
It is a good idea to make a calculation of savings expectations, you can take a calculator or an Excel sheet if you handle them well, to make a template of savings requirements to reach the final goal that you have set.
Assumable objectives
It is no use setting a monthly goal that we cannot maintain. Above all, we must cover our usual monthly expenses and needs and set our monthly savings target based on that available margin.
An extra help
It is very useful to have an extra savings system that guarantees profitability and adds value to our money. In these cases we can ask for help from a professional advisor to tell us how to do it. These are some tips that you can put into practice, the important thing is that you choose the ones that best suit you according to your possibilities and you can achieve the goals that you have set for yourself.
It is recommended that you set a certain deadline and an achievable goal, so that you stay motivated. If you also have a private savings plan, you can plan and monitor your investment. It is important that this ensures the profitability, liquidity and flexibility necessary to have the peace of mind of being adequately protected and recovering your investment in the event of an unforeseen event.
Today, there are a large number of applications that bring together your monthly income and expenses so that you can see, without having to keep track, where the money is going each month, and how you can control that expense.