You’re now at the start of your career! Let’s look into how to save money working at your first job.
Congratulations on your new job! To make the most of it, it pays to learn how to save money working at your first job. The following is a list of advice that will allow you to make the most of your new found income.
Create a Budget
A budget makes it much easier to figure out places you can cut costs and how much you can really afford to save (or spend) each month after you pay all the necessary bills and expenses. You can’t make informed spending decisions if you don’t even have an accurate picture of where your money needs to go each month.
Focus on Paying off Debts Quickly
Whether they’re school loans or car payments, chances are you have some debts you still need to pay. Unless they’re interest-free, do your best to pay them off as soon as possible. While this strategy won’t create an immediate increase in cash in your bank account, it will save money in the long run by avoiding extra interest payments.
Fight the Peer Pressure
It can be tempting to join your coworkers for happy hour or in a group lunch outing, but doing these things too often can get really expensive really fast. To help save money working at that first job, try to reduce the number of times you go out to eat or drink with friends from work. It may be difficult to find the right balance, but you don’t need to accept every single invitation to avoid an anti-social label. And when you do go out, you can limit your purchases, for example, by just enjoying one drink for the entire happy hour. Not only will this save money, but it might also save you from embarrassment or legal trouble.
Pack Your Lunch
Eating lunch out is almost always more expensive than packing your own lunch. This is true even if your lunch is a convenience food like a frozen entrée. It will take a little bit of extra time in the morning (or night before) to prepare and pack your lunch, but it can easily save over a hundred dollars a month.
Use Automatic Savings Programs with Your Bank
Your first job will likely pay you via direct deposit. An easy way to save money is to have an automatic transfer set up. This transfers a portion of your direct deposit to your savings account automatically. If you do this from the very beginning, you will never notice the drop in available cash for discretionary purchases because the money goes into savings “off the top” of your paycheck.
Take Advantage of Your Employer’s Retirement Benefits
Some of the larger employers will offer retirement benefits, such as 401(k) matching. If you have your employer deduct a certain percentage of your income from each paycheck, they will match some of that deduction. The amount of matching depends on the employer, but it’s often dollar-for-dollar for the first few percentages you put into the 401(k). This is free money – take advantage of it!
Live with Roommates
With your new steady paycheck, you may easily be able to afford to live on your own, or even buy a house. But you can save a lot of cash by continuing to rent an apartment with a roommate or two. The extra savings you now have as a result of paying 50% or 33% of what you’d normally pay to live on your own can go into a special savings fund for your future home.
Carpool
If you live near someone who works with you, look into carpooling with them. You can alternate who drives and save 50% on the gas you use to get to and from work.
Even if you’re working on how to save money working at your first job, you may need a title pawn to help you in the meantime. Come on in to Title Tree, and we can help you get the cash you need.