Staying Motivated to Save

I feel that I’ve been in motivational rut lately, particularly about savings.  Part of the rut is due to the lack of specific goals or milestones with respect to savings.  There are presently (thankfully) no emergencies or urgent debts to save for.  But, at the same time, other goals such as specific $$ amounts, are much longer term.  In this intermediate period, finding excuses to splurge is easy and continuing to stay motivated to save is hard.

In speaking with a friend who spent several years saving substantial amounts of money each month to pay off her student loans, she recommended the following:

–Have designated fun money each month — the amount doesn’t need to be much, but having a specific amount allowed for fun and not required purchases (I tend to spend this on books) is great.

–Keep savings accounts segregated for different goals — this can be done with an online bank such as ING, or on a spreadsheet.  For my friend, keeping track of each individual goal (each credit card paid down, each student loan, retirement savings, emergency fund savings, etc…) helps her to see the progress with each one.

–Have intermediate savings goals — even if the goals for retirement and other long-term goals are far away, keep intermediate goals such as at key dollar threshholds and for certain positive outcomes (such as a new appliance that’s needed)

–Read inspirational blogs — I have found reading other personal financial blogs helpful in understanding what some of the challenges and solutions are to various issues

–Continue to use techniques like automatic transfers — even if your motivation is lagging, having money sent to savings and retirement accounts every month through autopay helps the $$ accumulate.

see other posts at this week’s Festival of Frugality