Buying a home is called an investment for a reason
When you decide to start looking into buying, especially for the first time, it can feel like you need a million dollars. Cue the Dr Evil meme in your head… haha you’re welcome! In all seriousness, I remember all the stressful things that I told myself just because I really didn’t know what I didn’t know. So my advice is to talk to a loan officer and start saving money. I’m not a loan officer but I can give you a few tips on saving money.
WHERE TO START
First, you have to determine your financial priorities. This all has to be a conscious decision or it will not stick long enough to make an impact. From there, looking at your bank statements and credit card statements is the first step. You need to know WHERE your money is going out before you can make a game plan and a budget for what is coming in. Then start with these questions:
- Is there any reoccurring charges for services you do not use? Can you cancel this? (think streaming service, gym, meal plan subscriptions)
- How much are you eating out? Are you using a delivery service too? If so, are you willing to swap this for a meal prepped at home? Maybe just at lunch? or at the least go pick it up yourself?
- Are you spending money at a coffee shop daily? If so, are you willing to make coffee at home? Maybe just week days and you can have a treat on the weekend?
- Start your budget!
BUDGETING
Budgeting means taking your known absolute expenditures and allocating a max portion of your monthly income to it. Then before you give any allocation to the “fun” buckets – Save first! Actually put this as one of your absolute expenditures and “pay” the savings account first. This one takes a little more thinking in my opinion… but once you start or automate it then you know you will start saving the amount you WANT to save.
FINANCIAL FASTING
This one is a step further on budgeting. This is a conscious effort to not spend anything in the “fun” category for an amount of time of your choosing. You pay your bills or anything that is due monthly: rent/mortgage, any car payments, any insurance payments, any utilities, any loans or credit card payments. After you pay these pieces, you put what you did not spend at the end of the month in savings!
These are all things that I have done.
These are all things that I have also failed at a few times too.
Give yourself grace as you go & be proud of the small wins!
We got this!
