little by little to build considerable savings over long time. Money always required time to grow because of its nature of gradual growth. I would like to share a very simple idea, known as ‘controls’, to your shopping action to intelligently make a huge savings. This will not only help you to create wealth over long term but it also will be helpful to teach your kids about money savings habits. Remember, my intention is not advise you to reduce your shopping or stop buying any items. But, here are some practical methods that you can practice while shopping. If you have money, you can shop as you wish at any time and anywhere. I am not the person to say you ‘No’ to shop or reduce shopping. Enjoy maximum shopping and practice this simple saving.
If I speak personally, I am practicing this habit for long time, more than years, and highly succeeded with idea and goal of saving money from my shopping habit. I have not reduced anything or avoid shopping to save money. But, I have shopped frequently whenever I thought and bought whatever I want over the time. But, I practically used the below ‘controls’ without any failure. It gave me lots of money as savings, with this simple and interesting habit. I can also inform you the daily shopping and associated savings are my major hobbies now. Little joke: If you don’t have a habit of shopping, I am not telling you to start shopping as a habit by today to build savings habit from shopping. You have lots of other methods to save.
Here is my personal ‘controls’ for day to day shopping. The primary criteria to start this habit is, understand the difference of “need” and “want”. Any item that is necessary for your survival should fall under ‘need’ category and items that can be a part of luxury or posh should go to ‘want’ category.
• Whenever you are planning to shop for anything that is in a ‘need’ category, prefer any shops that providing discounts. Compare the original price with the discounted price. Add that savings to your savings box or a separate account. For example, if I need an item and its original price is 100 bucks. If I am getting the same with a discounted price of 95 bucks from another store, I am saving 5 bucks on that purchased. Those 5 bucks should deposit to my saving box or account.
• When purchasing any item that falling to the ‘want’ category such as electronics, periodicals, furniture, CD’s, dress material, gifts etc., check with all possible stores near by you to identify the best discounted price. If you got a best price, buy the item and identify your savings compare with its offered price you have seen with other shops. Deposit that saved amount to your savings box. For example, if you want a music system and found the price of the same is 450 bucks in one store, 445 in other. Finally you got it in a price of 430; compare the highest asked price of 450 with your given 430 bucks. You have a savings of 20 bucks. Deposit these 20 bucks to your savings box or account.
• When you going to shop for purchasing large number of items like food materials etc., always select a reputed retail shop that giving considerable discounts on each item. When getting your bill, have a look on the section ‘the amount you saved in this bill or purchase’ if there, or the received discount on each item. Calculate that total discount you got from this purchase, deposit that amount to your savings box or account.
• Always prefer to NOT buy any electronic item that is newly launching in the market with lots of features. You should have enough patience to not jumping into any pre-launching offers or any surprising features the product offers. As it is an electronic item, a symbol of posh and luxury, wait for some weeks to get any news of launching another version of the product from the same company or a competitor. This will cause a sharp fall in price with present produce and you can purchase the same at that time from the company outlet. Once purchased, compare the given price with the price offered at the time of launching this product. Deposit that discount to your savings box or account.
• Always prefer to deposit a percentage of each 100 bucks that you are spending whenever you shop. Depositing 5 % of each 100 bucks is a good practice you can follow.
Above are some possible methods to save money along with your shopping habit. The major advantage of this system is, it is not forcing you to stop or control your shopping habit or not forcing you to not buy any items or reduce the quantity. Punctuality is the only requisite to follow this system. Any action to calculate and deposit your saved amounts to the savings box should complete time to time without any failure. It is better to appoint your kid to take care of this after you reach to home from shopping center. They will do it properly and regularly.
As a bonus, never dip to such created savings. You can later use this amount for investing purpose or any other good use.
Each person should have similar ideas to share with others to save money by not harm any action, interest or time of the readers. Narrating such ideas here will be mutually beneficial for you as well as the readers. I strongly recommend you to comment here with any idea you have, for the benefit of the readers. Also, feel free to comment on this article to point out any mistakes, any required additions, adding any more points etc.
Hope you have enjoyed this article and it will be beneficial for you to save your money in a better way.