Before you start thinking about how to invest your money, you should first look at how you can improve your savings behavior. Especially in the current Corona crisis, there are completely new opportunities to put some money aside, because you can only spend it to a limited extent.

In the following article we give a few tips on how you can save money in everyday life, which can then be invested sensibly in the second step. But let’s first deal with the most important question: Why should you save at all?

Save?

As long as you have enough salary to live on and you can afford a great vacation every year, you don’t need to save any money, right? Not correct! Because at the latest when the car breaks down or the washing machine gives up the ghost, most people realize how important it is to have some money on your side. You don’t just pay a bill of 500 euros or more quickly from the postage box.

If you have no savings, you often have to resort to expensive overdraft facilities and the vicious circle begins: Once the account is overdrawn, you will not be able to get out of the red anytime soon. However, to ensure that this does not happen, you should always have some money ready for emergencies -more precisely about three gross monthly salaries. We will explain to you below in our guide how you can achieve this quickly.

Of course, saving money isn’t just about unexpected expenses. Sooner or later you will have to deal with retirement planning. “I can take care of that when I’m older,” thinks everyone under 30 years old. Because retirement still seems a long way off, as you have only just dared to start your professional life. One thing is clear: Even now, the state pension scheme is not enough to prepare for a pleasant retirement. Nobody knows what it will look like in 20 or 30 years. So if you want to live well in old age, you should take care of it as early as possible.

 

Convert the price into working hours!

Who doesn’t know that: You see a beautiful piece of clothing and would like to take it with you straight away, but it costs 100 euros. You now have three options. The first and probably the least thoughtful one would be: you buy these pants immediately and put them in your closet with your other seven pants. But you can also sleep on it for one or more nights and then decide whether you really need the pants.

Then there is a third option, which most people will probably lose their desire immediately: Think about how long you have to work for the price of 100 euros. For example, if you earn 2,000 euros net a month and work 40 hours a week, you get a net hourly wage of 12.50 euros. So to earn 100 euros, you have to work eight hours. Is it really worth a full day to work on that new garment?

 

Save money with the 50/30/20 rule

Here the principle is simple: Half of your income covers fixed costs such as rent, electricity, cell phone contracts, internet and so on. If you cannot pay your fixed costs with around 50 percent of your salary, this is an indicator that these are too high and that there may be potential for savings. 30 percent of the money goes for all variable costs- i.e. groceries, restaurant visits, the cinema or even clubs. And now comes the bottom line: The remaining 20 percent of your income will be saved. That means they come to a separate account before you are even tempted to spend it. We recommend that you set up a standing order so that the money is automatically debited when your salary is received.

The best way to do this is to use a free call money account, to which you can also deposit money at short notice if, for example, there is still something left over at the end of the month. You can also access your money quickly and at any time.

 

Writing a shopping list

You can also do something for your household budget when you go shopping. The best thing to do is to go shopping on Saturday just before the store closes. And write your wishes on a shopping list beforehand. Then you are less prone to the enticing offers on the supermarket shelves: The limited time forces you to go shopping and concentrate on your shopping list. In addition, many fresh products are often offered cheaper before the weekend -for example fruit, vegetables, salads or yogurts.

 

Pay in cash

Our brain registers the expenditures significantly more with a cash payment than with a card payment. Especially with banknotes, you usually have a good overview of how much money is left or not. This is also known as the cash reminder function. In addition, we have a special relationship with money. The pain center in the brain is activated during the payment process: there is pain at loss when we spend money. However, this is significantly greater when paying with cash than with an alternative payment method. It doesn’t matter whether we pay by card or smartphone. The situation is similar with online payment services such as PayPal. In the end, this means that those who pay by card are less painful.

So if you want to save money, you should simply pay with cash in the future, even if it is getting easier and faster thanks to smartphones and Girocard. If you don’t want to do without it, you can at least have the account balance displayed afterwards when paying with your smartphone in order to reactivate the pain center.

 

Mucking out

In order to clear your head and become aware of the things you really need, you should first sort out your own possessions. Minimalism is trendy and has some positive effects on consumer behavior- and thus also on your own wallet. If you look at your possessions, you will quickly discover some items that you didn’t even know you owned. In addition, there are things for which you no longer have any use and which may even be a burden.

Therefore, sort out incriminating items and sell duplicate or useless items. In this way, you also sharpen your eye for the really important things in life. When you have less, you feel less need to buy new things. This will save you a ton of money in the long run.

 

Filing a tax return

Employees often give away money because they pay too much tax. Many even do not file a tax return at all because it seems too complicated for many. If you don’t know your way around and shy away from the effort, you should become a member of an income tax aid association. Or you can hire a tax advisor for a year or two. You can also deduct the costs from tax. After that, you will probably be so familiar with the matter that you can do your tax return yourself online.

 

Change energy provider

Due to the Co2 pricing, heating costs will rise significantly from January 2021. So it makes sense to think about changing energy providers from time to time, as this can save several hundred euros per year.

According to the comparison portal Check24, most electricity customers can save up to 300 euros per year. For gas customers, the savings potential is even higher and on average up to 500 euros can be saved per year. You don’t have to fight your way through the tariff jungle yourself, providers such as Verivox or Check24 do that for you. As with all offers, however, you should exercise some caution with extremely cheap providers. You should therefore take a provider with a very good rating and perhaps a supply whose name you already know. & nbsp;