Member Since: December 25, 2007
Answers: 65
Last Update: August 19, 2008
Visitors: 4666
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I'm 23 years old. I have a full time job, I get paid once a month, roughly $1300. I still live at home so I have no 'bills' except for my cell phone and a car payment, that is about $300 together. That leaves me with about $1000.
I want to try and move out either by the end of this year or early next year. But, I cannot save money for the life of me, and I really have nothing to show for why I don't have money. But by the end of the month I'm lucky if I have $5.
Can you give me some ideas on how to start saving my money? I really could use it!
Thanks!
:) (link)
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You might want to make a relatively small investment on some budget software. Quicken is a good one. If you faithfully enter in all your transactions, you can use the reporting tools to see exactly where your money is going. It's so easy to spend $30 here, $40 there and bam--it's gone from your memory. Since you say you have nothing to show, I assume that's your big problem right now. You can use categories such as clothing, entertainment, dining out, etc. and also create custom categories. And be sure to assign a category to each transaction! Then you can run reports to see what percentage of your money is spent on each category. I was astounded to find out how much money I was spending on dining out, after just a month or two of keeping track.
It takes a little work, but it's a real eye-opener. And if you REALLY want to know where your money is going, DON'T create a category called "ATM Withdrawal". That WON'T help you to see that you took $100 out last Friday and can't remember where it went! Good luck!
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