Saving money is not easy when you don’t have enough money coming in every month to cover your bills, so you might need to look at ways to increase your income. There are many ways that you can increase your income. Years ago, it may have been harder.
Increase Your Income
The Internet has opened up many opportunities for people to make money. You can put items for sale quickly and easily on Craigslist or eBay and get rid of some of those items that are just taking up space. That should bring in some money, but eventually you will end up with nothing else to sell.
You can also offer your expertise to others through websites that will connect you with people looking for one time job offers. Perhaps you can write and get paid for doing that. Places like O’desk.com and Scriptlance. com would be a great place to start. You can bid on jobs that fit your area of expertise. They commonly have jobs for writers, programmers, web designers, graphic designers and a large variety of other services. You can also tap into Craigslist and hunt for jobs there.
Set a Savings Goal
Assuming that you are diligent in your hunt for extra income and follow through with the difficult task of actually increasing your income, the next step for you is to set a goal for your savings. It’s a lot more fun to make sacrifices if you can picture in your mind being able to reach these goals.
For example, your goal might be to get rid of your credit card debt. Picture how it feels to not worry about those monthly payments. Picture how it would feel if you took that same amount of money you were paying every month and saved it for a nice vacation. What is your dream destination?
Put pictures of the places you want to go to in your home office, on your refrigerator. Put them anywhere that you will see them every day. Next time you are tempted to use your credit card, just remember the pictures of your vacation spot. This can help you remember why you are doing without or not using your credit card. People tend to willingly go without a lot of things in order to reach a goal that is really worthwhile to them. Set a goal that is worthwhile to you.
Imagine Achieving Your Savings Goal
The secret to saving money is to be able to picture how life will be when you reach the goals you have set. So often when we feel bad or when we suffer a loss of self esteem, we naturally look for ways to make ourselves feel better. That is a natural and good response.
Plan to do things that will make you feel better. Make sure they will not cost you much money or cause you to gain weight. There are a lot of activities that you can do to feel better at no cost. Listed below are some suggested activities that cost nothing and feel good.
- Go for a walk in a popular park. Getting outside and seeing other people is self assuring and helps you connect to other people.
- Can you smile at anyone? Smiling brings internal pleasure as well as bringing happiness to someone else. Remember what happens to you when you see a baby smile at you. You feel joy at no cost.
- Exercise in any fashion that you enjoy. Get moving and see if that doesn’t help your outlook on life.
- Talk to someone you haven’t talked to in years. Connecting with people can make you feel good.
- Check your local newspaper and see if there are any events you can attend that interest you and don’t cost anything to attend.
- Pet a dog or cat. Pets can bring smiles to your face quickly.
Whatever method you choose to do to make you feel better is fine as long as it is low cost and low calorie.
Save money easily by having sufficient income and by setting your savings goal to be something worthwhile to you. You can make saving money so much easier on yourself. Start today by setting your savings goal and begin to dream again.