7 barriers that keep us from saving money (and how to knock them down)

We get it; the word “budget” doesn’t exactly excite anyone, but hear us out. A budget is essentially a financial game plan. It helps you set limits on how much you spend in certain categories. Plus, it accounts for every dollar coming in and going out each month so you better understand how much you could be saving.

• How to knock down this barrier:  Create a budget. List out all your monthly expenses — bills, essentials, entertainment, and more — and subtract that from your post-tax monthly income. How much is left over for saving? How much could you move around to free up more funds?

OK, so maybe you’re not saving as much as you’d like right now, but things will change when you get that promotion you’ve been working toward, right? Maybe.

Yes, making more money certainly makes saving money a lot easier. But do you expect your expenses to stay the same? Think back to the last time your salary experienced a big jump. Are your expenses the same now as they were then?

This type of thinking could be holding you back from starting to save right here, right now.

• How to knock down this barrier: Start saving, right now. Even saving $50 a month comes out to $600 a year. Don’t put it off until tomorrow, expecting to have all this flexible income that’ll help you make up for lost time. If you catch yourself thinking this way, remind yourself that as your income goes up, your expenses tend to go up, too.

Some people’s savings plans consist of this: get paid, pay the bills, spend like they normally do, and save whatever’s left. What if you could do things a little smarter?

Saving money is just like any other goal: it’s much easier to achieve it if you specify a target to reach. That’s why people looking to lose weight assign a certain amount they want to lose each month. It gives them a goal to work toward, keeps them accountable, and lets them know if they’re doing a good job or if they need to make adjustments.

• How to knock down this barrier: Set a monthly savings target. When you hit that target, you’ll feel good knowing that you stayed on track. When you don’t, go back and see what happened and whether you need to make any changes, or if it was just one of those months. Want to go a step further? Set up automatic transfers every pay day from your checking account to savings so you don’t have to choose to save. It’ll be done for you!

Bonus tip: leverage financial tools, like Citizens Savings Tracker™¹, to help automate your savings so you can stay on top of your goals.

If housing is your biggest expense, student loan payments are probably next in line. The average monthly student loan payment is $393, and the median payment was $222. However, you might be paying even more than those figures depict.

• How to knock down this barrier: Look into refinancing your student loans. It could lower your monthly payment to make more room for saving, thanks to a lower interest rate or extended repayment term.

It’s hard to add new habits to your routine, saving money included. Creating a budget, following it, setting savings targets — all these things could be new to you, which might be scary. So scary, in fact, that you drop it altogether at the first sign of trouble.

• How to knock down this barrier: Ease into your new savings plan. Don’t set difficult financial goals right out of the gate; start small so you can ease into these new habits. Once you get more accustomed to this new way of managing your money, then you can increase your savings targets accordingly.

Credit cards provide such great flexibility when making purchases that we sometimes overextend ourselves. Then we get the bill and wonder what the heck happened out there.

And with high interest rates, you’re under a lot of pressure to make your full payments each billing cycle. You’re left to decide between overextending yourself to make the full payment — and thus cutting back on how much you save that month — or paying some of it and getting hit with interest charges.

• How to knock down this barrier: When you make a purchase on your credit card, do your best to pay it off once it appears on your statement. That way, you keep your bill to a minimum and stay within the constraints of your budget. Another tip? Avoid impulse purchases by giving yourself a day to think it over. If, after that day, you still want to make the purchase, go for it. Hopefully that extra time will keep you from making the completely-unnecessary-but-sounded-good-at-the-time purchases we’ve all made before.

Wherever you are in your financial journey, Citizens is here to help – with banking that stands with you and grows with you. With automatic transfers from your checking to your savings account, you can set money aside and watch your savings add up.

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