It's not always what you make it's what you can save. Sometimes when you have fun now you will pay for it later. Learn some tips to live a great life without spending a ton of money.
One of the best ways to achieve financial freedom is to save money. Many millionaires got to where they were not necessarily because they were born millionaires, but because they lived frugally for a long time and never spent their money on anything but what they absolutely needed. The principle behind this article is to change your way of thinking. Having $20,000 saved up in an account, even if you live in a small mobile home will make you a whole lot richer than someone that lives in a $600,000 home who is barely making their payments and constantly under a lot of stress just to try to keep their home. When you start saving your money right now, it will be there for you when you get older and really need it. Just putting aside $150.00 per month in an IRA when you are 18 years old will make you $1,200,000 by the time you turn 65.
Most of the time when you purchase brand name goods you are paying for the name only. You get used to this, like all bad habits, and when you purchase store brand items you may feel inferior at first. But do it anyway, because they are the same products with the same ingredients almost all the time. When you buy brand name products all you're paying for is the expensive packaging, their TV commercials and the fancy name behind them. When you're out in public no one knows which products are using so why use the expensive ones?
You can usually enjoy a good steak meal at home for the same price as a junk food fast food meal. You can eat much healthier and cheaper if you eat at home instead of eating out all the time. Yes eating out is fun and entertaining since you get a chance of environment and get to see different people, but it is very expensive, especially if you do it every day. You can usually eat at home for under $200.00 per month. Eating out every day will run you about $600.00 per month. Also many times you'll see coupons that come in the mail for example 100 page notepads for only 25 cents each. Usually these cost about $1.00 each. When you see these sales use it as your opportunity to stock up on these items.
Another example was we got a coupon for a special manufacturers sale for energy efficient light bulbs for just $1.00 for a pack of 4. The normal price was $7.00 for a pack. I used this opportunity to buy 10 packs or 40 light bulbs and ended up saving about $60.00. I installed these on every lamp and outlet in our home and saved money on electricity at the same time, so it was a double whammy. Saving money doesn't mean you have to live in a dark closet, it just means being logical about what you spend. It also doesn't mean you can't treat yourself out to ice cream every now and then or a good movie, but anything done in moderation will remain fun. But doing anything in excess will make the activity less fun and will start getting very expensive. If you can save 10-30 percent of what you make each month you should be in good shape.
