Temporarily stop investing. Consistently saving for retirement over time is a major key to a good financial game plan. However, if you want to pause investing while you focus on saving for a house, that’s A-OK. Just make sure you pause your investing for no more than three years (and go right back to investing 15% of your income every month as soon as you buy a house). Eat at home more often. You already know eating out is way more expensive than cooking at home. Now, there’s nothing wrong with eating out, but taking fewer trips to restaurants is a great way to save a whole lot of money (just make sure you add a little extra to your grocery budget). Limit your paid subscriptions. It feels like there are a million different streaming services to choose from these days. And even though most of them are less than $10 a month, they can add up quickly. So, if you’re looking for an easy way to cut down on expenses, canceling some subscriptions is a great way to do that. Not only are there lots of great free streaming services available, but chances are you don’t need Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max and Disney+. Step 4: Make Adjustments If this is your first budget, there’s a good chance you’ll wind up with more money going out than coming in when you list your expenses—just like the couple in our example. That means you need to do one of two things: increase your income or decrease your expenses. But don’t worry! There are several ways you can spend less and make more. Many of which aren’t even that difficult. To start, you can increase your income by getting a side hustle, asking for a raise, working overtime, selling items you don’t need, and plenty of other ways, too. When it comes to lowering your expenses, there are obviously lots of different things you can do. I cover several of the best ones in my free 14-Day Money Finder, where I’ll send you a practical tip on saving money every day for two weeks. But for now, here are three of my favorite ways to spend less while saving for a house:
Small changes like these can really add up, you guys! Don’t believe me? Let’s go back to our example couple.
Say the couple takes all three of those steps to cut back on expenses and they each start a side hustle that earns $225 a month. Here’s what their updated budget would look like:
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