Saving $1,000 sounds difficult, but all you need are the right tools and a good plan and you could be well on your way to a nice cash cushion. In this article, we’ll go over how to save $1000 fast.
How To Save $1000 In No Time
Below, I mapped out some eye-opening ideas on how you could scrape together $1,000. Hopefully, my budget-cutting ideas will help you create your own successful savings plan.
1. Create A Timeline
Most of us won’t be able to put away $1,000 within the next week or two. But it could be possible within a month. Figure out when you can realistically meet your savings goal factoring in your income, expenses, and priorities. Maybe you’re shooting for three months, or maybe you’ll need a year or more.
If you’re planning to make a specific purchase with a deadline, then you have your work cut out for you. If you just want some cash on hand for the future, create your savings plan and stick to it.
2. Prepare Lunch At Home
If you normally eat out for lunch three or four times a week, and a meal runs about $10. That’s $40 a week that you could possibly save by bringing lunch from home. Bring a TV dinner to work or pack a home lunch.
3. Automate Direct Deposits
You’re most likely to put money aside if you make the process as easy as possible. Save $1000 fast with direct deposit. With automation, you won’t even have to think about it. You might choose to have a percentage or fixed amount of your paycheck deposited into your savings right away, say 10%? Or you could link your savings account to your checking account and set up a weekly or monthly direct transfer.
4. Drink More Water
Not only is water cheaper or free! But, it’s also the healthiest drink on earth. Good crisp, clean, fresh water! No sugars or imitation chemical sweeteners, no calories, no need to say more. If you 2 or 3 soft drinks a day, cutting that out can save you $100 a month or so.
5. Use A Savings App
This step is optional but you may find it useful for extra help staying on track. Personal finance apps can track your spending, show your progress towards savings goals, AND transfer your extra cash to savings if you set it up that way.
Some of the best Automatic Savings Apps are:
Chime is actually a bank/online app that has an automatic savings program as one of it’s main benefits. The bank rounds up every transaction to the nearest dollar, and sets the money into a savings account. They also add a 10% reward to the money you save – up to $500 per year!
Acorns is a hybrid investing and savings app that rounds up every purchase you make to the nearest dollar and invests the difference in a diversified portfolio. Unlike the other apps listed here, this app focuses on investing, as well as saving.
Upon signing up, it will ask you questions about your income, net worth and risk tolerance to determine what kind of investments to choose. For those interested in investing but are unaware of how to start, Acorns is a good first step. Like other investment programs, Acorns charges a $1, $3, or $5 monthly fee for their service.
Empower Finance is a budgeting and account aggregation app that also has savings features built-in. What’s great about Empower is that it’s free although (there is a paid version), and their rates are very competitive in their savings account.
6. Eat Out Less
I’ve written and spoken before about how much money folks could save by eating more meals at home. With a family of four, eating out for dinner 3 times a week costs a pretty penny. Cutting down eating out to once a week could save a couple of hundred bucks a month.
7. Cut Out The Daily Starbucks
For all the Starbucks faithful fans. Cutting out your daily fix to just once or twice a week could save you $100 a month.
8. Wash Your Own Car
If you take the car to the car wash twice a month. Wash your own car and it could save you another $50 a month with 2 cars.
9. Cut out the Cable
There are so many options for home entertainment without cable nowadays. Netflix, Roku, streaming tv, etc. Cutting out the cable service could save $50-$100 monthly.
10. Be A Smart Shopper
Save money grocery shopping with cashback apps. As well as with coupons and store loyalty cards. You could easily save $100 a month being a smart shopper and keeping an eye out for those sales prices! I wrote an article on the best grocery cashback apps to use. Check it out HERE.
Start Saving
There you have it. Nothing fancy, just simple ways to help you save money. If you can find additional ways to save, even better. Use these guidelines and create your own self-specific plan to boost your net worth. Put it into action and you could save $1000 in no time!
