The Handy Little Savings Chart
What I would like to do today is illustrate how powerful putting even the smallest amount of money a way can be.
The trick to saving well is having a goal. It helps substantially if you have something you are saving for, be it a holiday, a new car, money to invest, creating an Emergency Fund, anything!
Once you have this goal, you need to set a time limit for yourself to reach it.
That’s where you can use my Handy Little Savings Chart.
As you can see (below) all it consists of is a simple table with a few columns: the first column is for an estimated saving per week and the other columns are simply the total money you will have after a set time, in this case 4, 8, 12, 26, 52 and 104 weeks.
This is simple maths that any high schooler could work out in their head but seeing it visually like this make you realise just how much money you could have after time. And these calculations don’t factor in any interest you could earn.
Say you want to save for a holiday to visit a friend in another city and you figure you will need a total of about $1500 for it. (When working out how much you will need, make sure you work out a realistic target for yourself). Looking at the table you can see several amounts for around $1500.
You can see that if I want to wait 52 weeks, or a whole year, I would need to save $30 per week. If I wanted to go sooner I would have to save more each week - if I wanted to go in just 26 weeks, or 6 months, I would need to put away $60 per week.
This can easily work with any purchase you want to make.
Want a new set of golf clubs? Find out how much they cost and decide on a time frame and see how much you will need to put aside each week to get them.
You can reverse this also. Have $xx to put aside and want to know how long it will take you to reach your target? Simply find your amount and move along until you find an amount close to your goal.
All this may sound very basic and simple - and it is - but it will get you thinking about money in real terms, and make you visualise that small amounts add up over time.
Another way to use this savings table is to work out how much that coffee is costing you each day. Say you buy a coffee every weekday for $3 just before work. That’s $15 per week you could be saving instead. (You could use it to save for a decent coffee machine at home!)
Over time that $15 can turn into a nice little nest egg. In 4 weeks you would have $60, in 12 weeks $180, and in 2 years you could have saved $1560!! And that doesn’t include any interest you would have earned along the way. Maybe it’s time you re-thought that morning coffee.
And it’s not just coffee. This can apply to anything. Do you buy you lunch every day? That’s about $8 per day, or $40 per week. Just by taking leftovers from last night’s dinner you could be on an overseas holiday in 2 years!!
You can even save and print out a copy of this table (feel free to do so for personal use) to keep in your wallet or purse. Every time you think about buying a coffee or your lunch, look at the chart and think about how much money you would save by not buying it.
Have you saved money by giving up on any small frequent purchases?
Image credit: annia316
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