Summer is on the way in a few months. This is the time when most high school and college students begin looking for their summer jobs and internships. Whether it’s your first job or you’re still working at a job you've held down for awhile, saving your money is important. For those students headed into college, this is the time to prepare a safety net for the year to come. Between class, sporting events and campus parties, college does not leave much time for you to actually work and the costs that come along with college can be totally overwhelming. College costs can be through the roof. You have tuition, room and board, lab fees, book fees, meals and so much more. Bottom line…. Life gets expensive.
Those of you that are returning to college know that it can be quite expensive and it helps to have a rainy day fund to get you through the years.
Even if you're not in college, saving your money early helps out a lot in the long run. You never know what surprise costs may pop up. You could come up on car trouble, an opportunity to travel or do an unpaid internship may come your way and you need funds to live off of. Maybe you just want to splurge on something special, no matter what the situation is, if you save your money you're never broke. So here’s some quick tips to help save more money quickly.
1. Open a savings account.
The easiest way to properly save money is to actually have a place to put the money you are saving. A seperate account to put your savings in is the smartest thing to do. Now, most savings accounts offer some form or interest, meaning your money grows the longer you leave it in the account. You can make deposits or withdrawals at any time, but consistently adding money to the account and leaving it there will increase the amount you have in the long run.
2. Cut down on unnecessary expenses.
Having paid subscriptions through Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, itunes, Tidal, Spotify and whatever other service is out there can be super costly after awhile. You probably don’t even use them all or get the full benefits of those accounts. Get rid of the ones that you don’t use very often. You could even consider sharing accounts with a friend or family member that way you both can use the service and split the cost. Another way to cut unnecessary expenses is to limit the amount of times you eat out or buy fast food. If you're going to Starbucks 5 times a week and you spend $7 per trip, at the end of the month you’ve just spent $140 on coffee alone. That’s excessive. Try meal prepping so you don’t have to buy breakfast or lunch everyday and try making your own coffee or smoothies in the morning. You’ll notice great savings.
3. Using saving apps.
There’s this really cool app out there called Acorns and others similar to it. The idea is that everytime you make a purchase with the debit card that you linked to the app, it rounds the total up to the nearest dollar and invests it into the stock market. For example, if you make a purchase of $10.50, Acorns will take that other 50c and invest it for you. These round ups slowly add up and you don’t really notice it coming from your account. You can also set up monthly deposits of any amount of your choosing. You can leave that money in the account to be invested or you can make a withdrawal at any time. Acorns isn’t the only app that offers a service like this, do your research and find out which app works best for you.
4. Selling unused items!
This isn’t necessarily a way to save money but it is a way to make some extra money. If you have some clothes or sneakers that are in good condition and you don’t wear them anymore, sell it. Add it to the Facebook marketplace or use a resale app like Vinted or Poshmark to sell it. You can sell other things like old textbooks, unused furniture, games, CDs, DVDs and whatever else you can think of. Remember, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.