Saving When You Have Nothing (or so they made you think)

(edit end of 2024:  Originally written when I was seeking to coach Christian single moms around stress, money, and feeding their kids a healthy diet.  The advice here is applicable to everyone however, so it stays posted here)

Don’t despise the “day of small things”. We should not scoff at starting out our savings journey small. Yes you hear people talking about investing in savings packages that will buy them a home in 5 years’ time, but not everyone has the ability to start saving the amounts necessary to make that even remotely possible. Rather than sit there feeling defeated that they can save for that house while you just want to save for a mere staycation, START saving for that staycation!

I mention various methods a person can use to begin their savings journey.

One is the doubling method where you start out with a penny, and double it every day until you can’t double it anymore and starting over. Another method is similar, but takes $1 per week and doubles it until you can’t double it anymore and then start over. You can take a page out of some of the investment apps out there and round up your daily or weekly shopping trips to the next interger and put that into savings. Some apps do this by the transaction, others do it by the month’s worth of transactions. One such app is Mylo that even works here in Canada. Another method is the 10-10-80 rule where you give God His 10%, put 10% aside into savings, and then budget your monthly expenses from the remaining 80%. This method works best when you’ve done the work to find the “hidden gold” in your household spending habits so that you actually know what your real household budget is and not what surrounding influences trained you to think it is.

Don’t despise the day of small things. You can start from almost nothing, dropping coins into a jar for your staycation, or for that birthday coming up, or to save for Christmas. This is doable. Trust me. If you need help separating societal influences from actual basic life staples, contact me. I am here to help.

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