Everyone knows we need to save our money. Some of us might even believe we make savvy financial decisions when we skip the occasional impulse buy, or pat ourselves on the back when we refrain from buying yet another pair of ripped blue jeans.
For many, the reason they can’t save money is they’re too afraid to face their finances. We worry that we’ll never be good savers and live in fear of our bank balances. There’s a culture of shame surrounding what “they” label “stupid” money decisions. Not to mention the constant anxiety about not saving enough. All this creates a negative feedback loop that inhibits people from learning about their money habits.
This shame is the prevailing narrative surrounding money advice. Far too many money experts are older white males — wagging their fingers at pesky Millennials and self-centered Gen Zers, making idiotic decisions and not buying houses.
Yet younger generations are saddled with outrageous debt. As inflation rates and housing markets rise — that outdated American dream of the Colonial house and picket fence becomes absolutely unattainable. So, when it feels like there’s no goal in sight, it’s tempting to take the nihilistic approach and spend-spend-spend rather than saving. Don’t forget, these generations are coming of age in the “YOLO” era.
In authors Emma Pattee and Stefanie O'Connell’s CNBC article “Personal finance advice relies on shame; what if we tried empathy?” They say: “From the over-simplified math of David Bach’s “The Latte Factor,” to Dave Ramsey’s condemnation of nearly all debt, to the media’s obsession with extreme frugality and early retirement, the message is clear: If you’re struggling financially, you only have yourself to blame. In this mythology, only once an individual takes full responsibility for their situation, will they be able to make the so-called right choices in order to achieve financial prosperity.”
You can’t simply put on a Joe Rogan podcast and magically change your life. Let’s just get to the point and actually speak about the main thing keeping people down: capitalism. So until we get rid of that, inequality will persist and the small-minded powers that be will blame the people suffering from it and for it.
However, it’s not all revolution or Rogan. There is a middle ground. By overcoming your fears you’ll be better equipped to take a peek at your finances and address the issues that are buried there. Rather than restricting yourself by a word like budget, try the term spending plan. It combines the thrill of spending with the intelligence of a plan. With this new term and ideology to hand, perhaps you’ll be able to set aside your money to save.
A spending plan isn’t intimidating — especially with the help of apps like Meet Cleo, which keep it real and keep you on track. By doing what a good friend would, the Meet Cleo finance app will help you to face the numbers and actually do something with them. You don’t have to make a mortgage your goal, but socking the money away can’t hurt.
Here are 6 ways you can shave down those numbers on your spreadsheet and cut costs:
Rent
No, I won’t be plugging the house hacking trend here — wannabe millionaire landlords exploiting the lack of affordable housing is not a fun investment strategy for me. However, rent is usually people’s biggest expense. If you can reduce this, it goes a long way to helping you save.
A lot of people don’t know that you can negotiate your rent. Instead of meekly accepting the price offered, you can present your landlord with a figure that works better for you. In a competitive housing market, this will be less effective. But some buildings offer incentives like a few months free. See if you can snag one of these deals. If your lease is almost up, try to renegotiate your rent. It costs landlords a lot to move you out and identify a replacement tenant when it would be cheaper to keep you. Give it a try. What do you have to lose but a couple of hundred dollars shaved off your living expenses.
Groceries
After rent, food is our second-largest expense. Between groceries and eating out — we’ll get to that — what we eat plays a huge factor in how we spend. While many people will tell you to head to Costco or Walmart to shop in bulk, take a breath and consider your shopping needs. Bigger isn’t always better when you buy more than you can eat because you think you’re getting a deal. It’s clear that bulk shopping isn't the answer for everyone. Shop smarter, not bigger. Go to the grocery store with a list and stick to it. To keep it interesting, maybe allow yourself one spontaneous buy, but trust me. Lists are law.
Eating Out
Like with grocery shopping, the key to curbing impulse shopping is allowing room in your spending plan for small indulgences. Allow for dinner out or delivery once or twice a week, then no more. That way, you’ll eat all the weekly groceries and truly savor those meals out. Two birds, one stone.
You Guessed It … The Latte
Joe Rogan and Co. will tell you that the daily Starbucks run is ruining your life. However, if there’s room for it in your spending plan, go ahead and keep your Starbs if it really lifts your day. For some, taking a walk to their local coffee shop is all that kept them going during the pandemic — and even now. But if hitting your local cafe is a mindless habit that you don’t value, sure, replace it with coffee at home. The key is intentionality, not punishment. Keep your small indulgences within the parameters of your spending plan.
Clothes
Do you have a wardrobe full of clothes but still feel like there’s nothing you can wear? That means your clothes aren’t following the rules of intentionality, as outlined above. Instead of hopping on microtrends and buying everything on the sale rack, take your time and consider how it will fit into your daily life before purchasing.
Subscriptions
Challenge to you right now: list everything you think you’re subscribed to right now. Then go through your credit card statements and itemize all the actual subscriptions. I guarantee you’ll find some you’ve totally forgotten about. Unsubscribe to them immediately. Too often, we forget what we signed up for and end up paying for it months or even years after the free trial is over. Then check through what’s left. Do you need every single streaming service? Do you need every single app? Your screentime and your savings will thank you.
Female Finance Gurus
For most of history — even today — women have not had the right to their own money.
Undervalued, underpaid, and — for the most part — treated like property themselves, women have often been deprived of financial autonomy.
Even now that many women are in charge of household finances, they still earn less on average than their male peers. The numbers by race are even more staggering. When it comes to understanding and handling money as a whole, there are a lot of us who feel disempowered.
According to One Advisory Partners: “51 percent of women consider themselves the “CFO” of their household. In addition, 54 percent said that they have either complete or a great deal of responsibility when it comes to managing their household's long-term savings and investments. Despite maintaining a dominant role with household finances, 63 percent of women wish they knew more about financial planning and investing.”
Really? One might ask. In this day and age? Yes, really. Despite mainstream feminism, the rise and fall of the girlboss, growing conversations about gender equality, there’s still stigma associated with being a woman who demands what she’s worth.
But the tide may be turning.
According to Sandra Pierce in the Financial Post, “women live longer than men and 80 percent are going to end up alone, whether because of longer life expectancies or divorce. My experience with widows and recent divorcees shows that once on their own, almost all the women who did not take an active role in their finances regretted it.”
By demanding that they get the compensation they deserve, women are taking charge of their finances — which is deeply important to their security and future.
One Advisory Partners reports that there’s hope for the future. “The next generation of women is particularly eager for greater financial knowledge. The same survey found that the majority of young women are interested in understanding financial concepts on a deeper level, but over half of those women don’t know where to seek out that information.”
These advances are spawning a new generation of women unafraid to talk about finances — women who make this knowledge accessible for other women. The importance of demystifying the personal finance space is helping many women find the confidence to give themselves the gift of future security.
Here are some of our favorite female financial gurus:
Seemingly every day, TikTok excavates a new defining difference between Gen Z and millennials.
Officially, millennials were born between 1981 and 1996, and Gen Z includes anyone born between 1997 and 2012. Though the "Zillennials" born between '94 and 2000 straddle this divide, the commonly cited factors that distinguish the two include: relationship to technology, use of social media, and memories/experiences of key events like 9/11 and the 2008 recession.
On social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, more whimsical differences emerge. Social and cultural norms always shift with the times, and certain trends are sure signs of which group a person belongs to.
Popular examples — some of which have caused internet outcries and viral trends (who remembers the "Proud to Be a Millennial" song) — are Gen Z versus Millennial preferences for mom jeans over skinny jeans and middle parts over side parts.
But one thing that unites them: similar attitudes towards money.
Both came (or are coming) of age during various crises — for many millennials, the great recession was a formative experience on their lives and career trajectories, and many Gen Zers have had their emergent professional lives rocked by the pandemic.
Add to all this the crippling load of student loan debt that both carry and the threat of the climate crisis putting a question mark over the task of future planning, learning to manage money is notoriously tricky for both factions — but they're increasingly empowering themselves using the internet.
According to Kasasa* , both generations are turning to personalized, tailored banking services. No one ever taught them to balance a checkbook (literally … what even is that?), but they're empowering themselves with digital banking.
"Millennials … seek digital tools to help manage their debt and see their banks as transactional as opposed to relational," according to Kasasa, and Gen Z are into "learning about personal finance. They have a strong appetite for financial education and are opening savings accounts at younger ages than prior generations."
With an appetite to learn about and confront the abysmal financial foundations, they have been handed, digital banking tools are attractive to both Gen Z and Millennials — bonus points if they are easy to use with a no-nonsense interface.
Enter: Cleo.
According to their
website, Cleo is an app which integrates all your accounts and, like a really financially savvy and brutally honest friend, tells you what's going on in your wallet.
Cleo is like the coolest finance major you'll ever meet. You can text her all your questions about your spending, your habits, and your current balances, and she'll give it to you straight.
She'll also tell you when you're running low — like when you should probably skip that Starbucks stop so you'll have money left for the subway home — and keeps you on track of your goals.
Here are some of our favorite features of Cleo that make her universally likable:
1. It's like talking to a friend
Above anything, Cleo is accessible. Anyone can (and everyone should) talk to her about money to demystify their finances. Cleo answers questions in a super easy-to-understand vernacular and talks to you like a friend — the kind of friend who isn't afraid to roast you when you're being shortsighted.
2. Autosave makes saving easy
Budgeting doesn't have to be boring. Saving money should be fun. After all, you're stacking up cash to live an awesome life — whether it's a sick vacation you want to take and post all over Instagram or a house in your dream neighborhood — so shouldn't you be excited about it? Well, it can be hard to drum up any verve for putting your money away, but Cleo uses autosave so you don't see the money it's saving for you until you've reached your goals
3. She breaks it down super simply
The key to getting good with money is looking at the big picture. Cleo categorizes your spending into parts so you know how much is going where. And it doesn't have to be intimidating. Sometimes all you need is a calculator and Cleo.
* https://www.kasasa.com/articles/generations/gen-x-...
Unfortunately, giving back can sometimes go haywire. If you're ready to make a donation, first consider common mistakes made when giving back.
Many people strive to support their community by donating their time or their money. When you find a meaningful cause, you might be quick to cut a donation check. Though it's admirable to be quick to act charitably, you should be wary of several common mistakes made when giving to charity. Being mindful of these mistakes and learning tips for making informed charitable choices can help you make the most out of your generous check.
Acting Quickly Out of Emotion
Mission statements are meant to be compelling. If you're an emotionally driven individual, it's natural to pull out your wallet at the sight of a sad puppy on TV or when informed about food insecurity over the phone. Unfortunately, not all charities are as effective or official as they may seem.
Take your passion for helping others one step further by making sure your chosen charity is legit. Speaking with a representative, reviewing their website and social media accounts, and looking at testaments online can give you a better idea of whether the organization is worth your donation.
Forgetting to Keep Record of the Donation
Don't forget that you can reap some financial perks from giving back! With the proper documentation of your donation, you can acquire a better tax deductible.
If you donate more than $12,400 as a single filer or $24,800 as one of two joint filers, you're eligible to deduct that amount from your taxes. So, when a charity asks if you'd like a receipt of donation, always answer yes.
Donating Unusable Materials
Most charities can utilize a monetary donation—it's the physical donations that usually cause some issues. Providing a local nonprofit with irrelevant materials or gifting them with unusable products are surprisingly common mistakes made when giving to charity.
Always check your intended charity's website for a list of things they do and do not accept. The majority of places will provide a guideline to donating or offer contact information to clarify any questions.
Strictly Giving at Year's End
As more and more people get into the holiday spirit at the end of the year, nonprofit organizations see an influx of donations. While it's great to spread holiday cheer via a monetary donation, it's important to keep that spirit going year-round.
With regular donations, charities can more effectively allocate their annual budget. Setting up an automatic monthly donation with the charity of your choosing can maximize your impact. You can account for a monthly donation by foregoing a costly coffee every once in a while.
