Simple habits that save you money

Blantyre

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Dec 26, 2020
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390
Times are hard and there are simple things we can all do to save money for for instance buying in bulk and coasting when driving where possible.
I just wanted to create a thread where we all share ideas and tips.
 

biometrics

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Oct 17, 2019
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20,267
Every month I decide not to spend money so I can pay more into my bond, and every fucking month something happens, be it my cats, housemate or house. Every. Month. Can't win at life it seems.

Sorry, not a tip, a rant.
 

slayer

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Joined
Jun 26, 2020
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106
Every month I decide not to spend money so I can pay more into my bond, and every fucking month something happens, be it my cats, housemate or house. Every. Month. Can't win at life it seems.

Sorry, not a tip, a rant.
Subliminal tips:

Don't have cats..
Don't have house mates..
Rent don't buy..
 

SauRoN

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May 2, 2020
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486
Every month I decide not to spend money so I can pay more into my bond, and every fucking month something happens, be it my cats, housemate or house. Every. Month. Can't win at life it seems.

Sorry, not a tip, a rant.

This where the “pay yourself first” rule applies.

You save first at the beginning of the month with what you’ve got, not at the end of the month with what you’ve got left.

That never works.


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SauRoN

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May 2, 2020
Messages
486
Times are hard and there are simple things we can all do to save money for for instance buying in bulk and coasting when driving where possible.
I just wanted to create a thread where we all share ideas and tips.

Coasting while driving isn’t going to save shit and if anything just waste your time and likely put you at higher risk of an accident.

And for the love of all that is holy please tell me your idea of coasting isn’t driving with the clutch held in, because then the risk of an accident is actually quite real.


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biometrics

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Oct 17, 2019
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20,267
This where the “pay yourself first” rule applies.

You save first at the beginning of the month with what you’ve got, not at the end of the month with what you’ve got left.

That never works.


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I have a comprehensive spreadsheet of all expenses. It's quite accurate. It's the unexpected expenses that screws me. But point taken, rather wait till month end to see what is left rather than project.
 

SauRoN

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I have a comprehensive spreadsheet of all expenses. It's quite accurate. It's the unexpected expenses that screws me. But point taken, rather wait till month end to see what is left rather than project.

I said the exact opposite. Don’t wait till month end, start saving from day one.

If you leave it will month end the money will always find somewhere else to go, it’s just the way of the world.

But if nothing else use your home loan as a savings account and score on the interest and spreadsheet your savings out of there.


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biometrics

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I said the exact opposite. Don’t wait till month end, start saving from day one.

If you leave it will month end the money will always find somewhere else to go, it’s just the way of the world.

But if nothing else use your home loan as a savings account and score on the interest and spreadsheet your savings out of there.


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Using my detailed spreadsheet I work out what I'll have extra at month start and transfer that to my bond, but every month something happens, to the point I now keep a few k rather than paying towards the bond as it always gets used.
 

SauRoN

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May 2, 2020
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486
1. Adjust your insurance downwards annually. Get a competitive quote and take it to your current broker and let them match or beat it.

2. On that topic get a broker and don’t use direct insurance services.

3. Ask yourself if you really need the top tier medical aid package. Downscale to a hospital plan and get gap cover, then save your own MSA instead. If you didn’t need the MA to begin with that MSA becomes a nice bonus, if you did then you’ve not lost anything and you can score on cash discount.

4. Don’t pay more for banking fees than you need to, unless you can offset them with rewards programs etc. By example don’t get a Private Banking account because they say you can have one. The bank should be paying you to bank with them not the other way around. Take the lower tier instead where you actually use all the benefits and max out the rewards.

5. Don’t drive if you don’t need to. Have things delivered, more often than not the courier cost js offset by the savings in time and money but more so in not buying what you didn’t need for the lack of browsing in store.

Also ask yourself based on your location and where you need to be if you really need a car at all. We are a household with two adults and two kids and have one car and a motorcycle. A second car would he a humongous waste of money and sit doing nothing half the time, whereas Uber easily fills the necessary on occasion gaps. Pp

6. When you’ve paid it off…don’t go buy another one, but keep pretending that you did. You’ve gotten used to paying R2500 a month for a car, keep doing it and put that money away and use it for vehicle expenses only and in a couple years buy the next car cash.

A 5 year old car with 100,000km is not old. And if you do the above you won’t need to worry about the lack of Motorplan and all the other bullshit they hooked you with.

10 years and 200,000km that’s an old car.

7. If you have a home loan use it to your advantage. Not so true in Covid times maybe but it will settle down again in time, but a home loan is probably the highest “paying” investment through offset interest than any savings account or average market tracking index.

Put that MSA and vehicle expense money and everything else in there and making your own little savings pockets for different goals on a spreadsheet. Every month your house is paid off faster.

8. Don’t use Dynamic debit orders linked to interest rates. Set your debit order amounts statistically as high as you can afford within your budget so whatever you are paying off is done faster and with less cost to you.

9. Get rid of the debt and go cash. Of course I’ll say now you shouldn’t have had the clothing accounts or anything but a vehicle and home loan in the first place, so get those wrapped up double quick. Get rid of the credit cards, you don’t actually need them.

And when you only have a car loan left wrap that up as quickly as you can and keep it that way as per point 6.

10. Define your savings goals. It’s pointless to be making all the effort of saving only to be pissing it all away again.

Goals inform your methods and motivations for savings.

Are they short term or long term? Do you want to retire or reach financial independence early? Do you just want to save for a holiday or a deposit on a house or something in the very near future. Do you just need to survive? All these things alter everything else.

11. Bank your change. FNB does this but I’m sure the others have similar by now where it rounds up your spending and then drops it into a savings account. But you could even do it by hand if you actually deal with cash. Even think there was some third party service offering a similar savings plan.

I started doing this and I think it rounds up to the nearest R5 on any swipe and every month I transfer the R200 odd to a fixed deposit account which is now sitting at R16,867 for literally doing almost nothing and not feeling it in the slightest.


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SauRoN

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May 2, 2020
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Using my detailed spreadsheet I work out what I'll have extra at month start and transfer that to my bond, but every month something happens, to the point I now keep a few k rather than paying towards the bond as it always gets used.

Your bond should be a flexible bond in which case you can just park it all there and then transfer it out if genuinely required.

It will help a lot in that “is this really necessary” self discipline.

Usually you have to draw more than a certain minimum out at a time which also helps to keep things in check a bit. With FNB it must be at least R1000.


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biometrics

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Oct 17, 2019
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20,267
Your bond should be a flexible bond in which case you can just park it all there and then transfer it out if genuinely required.

It will help a lot in that “is this really necessary” self discipline.

Usually you have to draw more than a certain minimum out at a time which also helps to keep things in check a bit. With FNB it must be at least R1000.


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We've got a joint bond. We agreed whatever goes in never goes out, so we opted out of a flexi bond. If there is a cash emergency I have a credit card. We want to have the house paid off by end 2022. Then we are debt free.
 

SauRoN

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May 2, 2020
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We've got a joint bond. We agreed whatever goes in never goes out, so we opted out of a flexi bond. If there is a cash emergency I have a credit card. We want to have the house paid off by end 2022. Then we are debt free.

Aah yea that explains it all then.


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Y2K

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May 3, 2020
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Times are hard and there are simple things we can all do to save money for for instance buying in bulk and coasting when driving where possible.
I just wanted to create a thread where we all share ideas and tips.
You're actually doing more damage to your car and not saving fuel at all.
 

Y2K

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May 3, 2020
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Location
Earth C137
Bulk buying has its pros and cons, if its something you use daily ie: milk, coffee, tea, cereal etc whatever it is, so long as it doesn't cause you to consume more than what you were, if you increase your consumption it negatively impacts your savings. Also people have this thing where they will buy groceries from 3 different stores because each item is like R2 cheaper without factoring in fuel/time/wear and tear on vehicle.
 
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