How to Save Money When You're Broke - Healthy Wealthy Skinny (2024)

Saving money that you don’t have sounds impossible.

If you are really broke you are focused on basic necessities such as shelter, food, and transportation to your job. After taking care of these items you may feel that there is nothing left to save.

But there are a few ways to start saving money and reverse your financial situation. In this post, I will reveal how to save money when you’re broke.

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6 Things You Should Be Doing If You’re Broke

There are a number of things you should be doing if you’re broke and saving money is high on the list. Check out the video below for a complete list.

Never Broke Again!

Before we jump into the ways to save money when you are broke, let’s start with some motivation.

If you are broke now you must understand that it is a temporary state that you can change. You must change the way you think before you can change your financial situation.

Grab a tissue and listen to this emotional story from Lisa Nichols. It will change your life.

How to Save Money When You’re Broke

After listening to Lisa’s super motivational story, you should be super inspired and ready to start saving.

Here are a few steps to take to start your savings journey.

Open a Savings Account

The first step to saving money when money is tight is to open a savings account. This allows you to separate your spending money from the money you need to save.

Separating your money gives you a clear visual of your savings. It can also make it more difficult to access your savings in case you are tempted to spend it.

If you do not have access or do not like banks you can choose another method of separating your money. The goal is to keep the money you are saving in a secure place that is totally separate from the money that you use for day to day living.

Create a Budget

The second step to saving money when you are broke is creating a budget.

A budget will give you a clear picture of what your expenses are and how much you will have to save each month.

Creating a budget is an essential step in managing your personal finances. And with the right tools, they can be simple to create and manage.

Download a copy of our free Monthly 50/30/20 Budget Worksheet. It’s a free excel spreadsheet to help you create and maintain your budget.

Set a Savings Goal

After you have a full understanding of your finances, it is time to set a savings goal.

Determine the exact amount or percentage of your income that you would like to save. This will give you a hard target that you must adhere to.

Use your budget to determine a daily, weekly, or every two weeks savings goal. Most often your saving frequency will line up with your paydays.

This will make it easy for you to set aside your savings immediately when you get paid.

When you initially start learning to save money, the amount you save isn’t important. You need to get yourself into the habit of saving.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a lot of money to save. Saving as little as $5 doesn’t sound like much.

However, it will put you in the mindset of saving and allow you to find it easier to save more money when you have it available.

Related Post: 52 Week Money Challenge – Start a Year of Saving

Limit Spending

A major part of saving money is having money to save.

Your first step in freeing up more money in your budget is to limit your spending. This means spending wisely on the items that you need to live.

When it comes to your living expenses, ensure that you are living as frugal as possible.

Make sure you are getting the best deals on things like insurance and gas.

Also, ensure that you are not wasting money on utilities by leaving lights on unnecessarily or using excessive amounts of water.

You should also ensure that you are purchasing frugal foods and making frugal meals.

Eliminate Extras

Eliminating extras goes hand in hand with limiting spending. Extras would include anything that is not essential to your day to day living.

This includes cable TV, trips to the nail salon, gym memberships, music subscriptions, and eating out just to name a few.

Most of these items are causing you to spend unnecessary money anyway. For example, you can get a great workout at home without any equipment needed.

Take an inventory of the extras that you have in your budget and decide what needs to be cut.

I don’t recommend eliminating all extras as making yourself too uncomfortable will cause you to abandon your savings goals.

For example, you can cut cable TV and keep a subscription to Netflix.

Netflix is an extrahowever if you don’t have any entertainment at home you might be tempted to go out to dinner and the movies causing you to spend more money.

Related Post: 8 Ways to Watch TV without Cable or Satellite

Get a Side Hustle

Another way to have more money to save is to get a good side hustle.

A side hustle is a way to make money outside of your main job. You can do this by getting a traditional part-timejob or by creating your own side business.

There are multiple ways to make extra money online or by doing needed tasks in your neighborhood.

Side hustles can help you get through times when spending extra money is required like birthdays and holidays. During these times you do not want to stop saving money as scheduled.

You also do not want to tap into your savings to buy gifts. A side hustle is just what you need to make the extra money you need for any holiday or special occasion.

Here are a few ways you can make extra money before Christmas.

The money from your side hustle can be used to increase the amount that you save or to help with unexpected expenses. Don’t make the mistake of spending more because you are bringing in extra cash.

Sell Stuff

Finally, selling unwanted and unused items is a great way to gather up extra money to save.

There are tons of websites and apps available that make selling your stuff easy and most importantly safe. Utilize sites such as the Declutter, the Facebook marketplace, Letgo, Offer Up and eBay.

Saving is Hard But Doable

Saving when you’re broke is hard but it is definitely doable.

Make up your mind that you are going to start saving, figure out your savings goal, watch your spending, and work on bringing in extra money.

With these steps, you’ll be on your way to filling your savings account and no longer being able to call yourself broke.

Leave a comment and share some of the ways that you save money even when money is tight.

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