31 People Share The Best Money Advice They've Ever Gotten

31 People Share The Best Money Advice They've Ever Gotten

Simple ways to save and smart ways to spend.

by Sally Tamarkinn   BuzzFeed News Reporter

Everyone needs money, but everyone has different strategies for saving it and spending it.  So we asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to share with us the best advice about money they'd ever gotten.

Here's what they shared:

1. Keep your three biggest expenses as low as you can.

"Your three biggest expenses are (usually in this order): housing, transport, and food. Keep those as low as you happily can, and that will make the most significant difference to your spending. I do this by sharing housing, cooking at home, and not having a car. You can lower other expenses and that definitely helps, too (i.e. get store brand, a cheaper mobile phone contract, clothes, etc.) but housing, transport, and food are where lowering costs will make the biggest difference."   —maxw46042041e

2. If you want to pay off multiple debts fast, try the Snowball method.

"Basically, you commit to paying an extra amount ($100 in this example) every month until all your debt is paid off. Also, once an account is closed, you add that minimum payment to the power payment.

You start by making a power payment (to the principle only) to the account with lowest balance debt, each month, until it's paid off. Once it is, you take the $100 and the monthly payment for the balance that's now closed and apply that to the next lowest balance debt until it's paid off. Rinse and repeat.

Eventually your power payments are huge and those larger balance debts don't seem so scary. It also doesn't impact your monthly budget too much. I paid off all my debt (student loans, credit cards, and car loans) by the time I was 28 using this method. I heard about it when I was 25."  —ja14torres

3. Round up on each bill and pay that amount.

"My dad always told me to round up your bills and pay a little extra, as it makes your next month's bill lower, leaves a good impression, and you won't miss the extra $5-$10."—elyse1509

4. Figure out what your monthly bills are going to be and then put that amount in savings throughout the month.

"I calculate what my bills are going to be for the month (car payment, rent, utility bills) then put half of that from each paycheck (I get paid bi-weekly) into savings so I know how much extra I have to work with. I also usually try to round up my bills and then I won't touch that extra money I put into my savings. For example, if my rent is $375 a month, I'll take out $200 a paycheck and keep the extra $25 I didn't use on rent as extra savings."

—elyse1509

5. Use direct deposit to put money directly into an account that's just for bills.

"Where I work you can have your paycheck split into however many different bank accounts and however you'd like. So you can have a bank account solely for bills that never change, like house or car payments. If you automatically have your bill money put into one account then you know that whatever is deposited into your other account is 'leftover' money."  —ashlyns4aa602521

6. Every time you make a dollar, save a dime.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/sallytamarkin/ways-to-stress-less-about-money