5 Tricks That Save A LOT of Money FAST

What's up, guys? It's Graham here, so let's get right into it because we've got an issue here. According to research, nearly 60% of adults do not have enough money saved to cover a $1,000 emergency, and nearly a third of those people would have to resort to borrowing money to pay for any unexpected expense, which, as we all know, adds up to a lot more money in the long run when you account for interest on top of that. It's with this information that it's no surprise that Americans are just not saving enough money.

Even when we go back and look at things historically, the average American savings rate really peaked in the '70s with a savings rate of about 12%, and then since then, it's been a very slow and steady decline. Now, in 2019, guess how much the average American is saving? Wait for it, because I wasn't ready for this. You ready for this? It's three and a half percent of their income, and that also includes Roth IRA and 401k contributions, which, basically, when you account for inflation, it's almost as though Americans are pretty much saving nothing.

Now, what's even more disheartening is that during recessions, savings immediately spike upwards, as shown on the gray lines in this graph. Then, as soon as the economy starts doing better, the savings rate starts trending back downwards. This tells me that people can and do cut back if needed, but as soon as things start looking optimistic, they go back to their normal spending and start saving less.

Now, we can certainly look at external economic factors and the lack of wage growth to be the culprit for this, but I really believe that, at the end of the day, it's really up to us to take personal responsibility to not only learn about savings but also to do the best that we can given the income that we have. When it comes to saving money, these are the five tricks that I found that work exceptionally well to save a lot more money without ever feeling like you're cutting back, even though you are. Each of these money-saving tricks can be implemented immediately as long as you just follow these techniques.

And of course, hit the like button if you haven't done that already! So with that said, let's get into the video.

Now, my first trick is—don't spend any money! Just kidding, obviously! Okay, no, but for real though, the first trick that I use is that if there's anything I'm looking to buy, I never buy it now. Instead, I buy it tomorrow. Now, this one is really just about cutting down on the impulse purchases that you make without ever really realizing it. This one is especially interesting once you start digging deeper, and this is because many studies have shown that shopping actually releases dopamine in the brain that brings about a sensation of happiness and well-being.

If we go even deeper down the rabbit hole—because this is what I was doing all last night, researching the effects of shopping on the brain—don't ask me why I found this stuff interesting, but here we go. This is the best part about all of this: they found the real dopamine hit doesn't come from actually buying the item that you're going out to get. Instead, it comes from the anticipation of buying the item itself. From this, we could basically conclude that buying something won't necessarily give you that fun excitement that you're looking for, and you can get all of the same enjoyment from shopping if you just don't actually buy anything and if you just window shop instead.

That happens to save you a lot of money. This is pretty much the strategy that I've utilized all the time. If there's something I see that I want to get, all I do is basically just don't buy it right then and there. Instead, I'll just sleep on it and wait to buy it the next day. By then, if I still want it, most of the time, I'll get it, but I would say more times than not, the desire to buy that thing just subsides, and I no longer want it the next day.

I'm positive that if you just implement the same thing, you can cut back and save a lot of money without ever feeling like you're cutting back or saving money—just by waiting 24 hours. A second, assuming you've waited a day and you're thinking about buying something, then think to yourself: if someone offered me the cash equivalent for this item right now, would I rather just have the cash? Sometimes we forget about how much something really costs when we're so fixated on just buying the thing that we want, but start thinking to yourself: if you have the choice between buying this item or getting paid that exact amount of money, which one would you choose?

By the way, I got this for free at some YouTube event, so don't think that I'm spending $400 on Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses. But anyway, in essence, if you decide not to buy something and save the difference, it's almost as though you just got paid to save. Now, I know this is a bit of a flawed way of thinking because I could totally just say to myself, “Oh, you know what? I was totally just about to buy this two million dollar Bugatti, but I decided not to do it, so I just saved two million dollars by not buying a Bugatti.”

That would be, by the way, an amazing clickbait title! Can you just imagine it? "How I saved two million dollars by not buying a Bugatti." I could see it now: 1 million views! But anyway, when you apply this mentality to normal everyday purchases, you don't really spend much time thinking about it. It really gets you prioritizing what's important and what's gonna give you the most long-term value, and really helps make you think more about the aspect of saving money than the aspect of buying the thing that you really want.

Now, this becomes especially evident when you look around at all of the things that you've bought. How much of that do you wish you could trade back with the snap of your fingers and get back what you spent on it? I have a feeling that probably half of my wardrobe would be gone from things that I bought that I just never really wore, and they just were not worth it! Especially when you divide how many times you've actually used something versus how much it costs, like the hundred dollar pair of shoes you wore twice. That means it costs you $50 every time you've worn those shoes.

Or that $300 Bose speaker that you've used like five times in the last year? That means it was $60 every time you've used it! So begin thinking of everything in terms of how much it costs per use, and also whether or not you would have taken the cash equivalent if you had the choice. I guarantee that by doing this, you'll end up spending a lot less, and by virtue of that, you'll end up saving a lot more.

So the third trick to saving money is to think to yourself: how many hours will I have to work to pay for it? So if you're making twenty dollars an hour and you decide to drop sixty dollars on dinner, in a way, that dinner is costing you three hours of your time to pay for it.

Going and spending twenty dollars on your lunch break is basically the equivalent of you working an extra hour just to pay for it. This is pretty much the entire premise of the book "Your Money or Your Life," which, by the way, if you have not read this book, I absolutely highly recommend reading it. But if you're not going to read it and you're going to ignore me on that, I have this—I'm going to summarize the entire book in like a minute. Basically, we all have a very limited amount of time on this planet, and it's really up to us to make the best use of that time, not only from a financial standpoint but also from personal fulfillment.

Given that it's really vital that we spend our money on the things that are most important to us, and since our time is such a limited resource, we shouldn't waste our time working for things that don't bring us long-term value. Sometimes, when you consider how long you're gonna have to work to pay for something that you might not actually use, it really makes you reconsider whether or not that thing is worth buying in the first place.

I think the same way when I'm working out and going to the gym. I think to myself: would I rather eat a Snickers bar and then spend 40 minutes on the treadmill to burn it off, or would I rather just not eat the Snickers bar? I think we all know the answer to that is that I would rather spend 40 minutes on the treadmill to burn off the Snickers bar because they're delicious! No, no, anyway, I'm kidding. The answer is I don't eat the Snickers bar. It's a lot easier to cut things out than it is to burn them off.

The same thing also applies to spending. It's a lot easier not to buy something than it is to make more money to pay for it. Again, when you start thinking this way, I guarantee you that you'll become more mindful about where you spend your money and just understanding how long that's going to take you to pay for it.

Now, fourth, a fun exercise that you can do at any time you spend less money or save something is by immediately transferring that to another account. Now, this is a really great way to not only make sure that you actually save that money, but it's also really effective because you could begin seeing the immediate results of saving as soon as you save by having more money in the bank account.

For instance, instead of going out and spending $20 at lunch, you cooked at home, and that only cost you $10. Now, since you went ahead and saved that $10, go ahead and transfer $10 from that account to another account that you're gonna be saving up money in. Then apply that to every single one of your other expenses where you can cut back and save money. When you start doing this, you'll just watch the savings add up over time.

Again, this is really just about seeing an immediate reward for slowly cutting back over time and beginning to see your results in real-time. I really think once you begin seeing it work firsthand, you're gonna be really excited about the aspect of just having extra money laying around, and you'll be more likely to stick with it.

And fifth, most importantly, think of what your money is going to be worth in its future value. Like when you save and invest your money, it's going to grow over time, and when you go and spend it, it's really like you're halting the growth of what that money would have been worth had you saved and invested it instead.

So if instead of buying avocado toast, you just took that $20 and invested it over the next forty years, and we took the average historic return of the stock market adjusted for inflation—with dividends reinvested—it's a lot to say! That $20 will have turned into nearly three hundred dollars of future money. So I just think to myself: okay, is this avocado toast really worth three hundred dollars in the future? And if the answer is no, then I just don't buy it.

Now, I'm a nutcase, and I think of everything this way. A $5 cup of coffee at Starbucks, to me, is like: well, is that really worth $75 of future money? And the answer is no, because I can make coffee myself for about 20 cents a cup! And you pour in the coffee, make coconut creamer, and it's delicious! It tastes way better than Starbucks for a fraction of the price.

So, start thinking of all of your purchases in the same way as well, and really ask yourself if what you're buying is going to add the equivalent amount of value now that you would have in the future had you just saved and invested it. If the answer is no, then don’t buy it! If you do decide it's gonna be worth it, then by all means, absolutely go for it! There's always a fine line between living in the moment and enjoying life, and saving for the future.

That line for all of us is going to be different, so just make sure you stay true to yourself, and you really understand what you're giving up in the future if you decide to get something right now. This is why it's so important to find a happy medium that works best for you so that you don't feel like you're missing out, but at the same time, you're prepared for the future and save money.

Lastly, one more thing I want to mention because this part is absolutely vital to anyone who wants to increase their savings: the harsh reality is that if you've already done all of the above and you're still not saving enough money, there's no way around it—you need to make more money. That is the truth.

And when I say something like this, I don't mean for it to sound like the person who says, "Oh, a homeless person should just buy a house and then they wouldn't be homeless anymore," because I totally get how it sounds. Just make more money, and then you can save more—as if you're not already trying to make more money. But when it comes to doing this, at a certain point, there's really only so much that you could save.

You can only cut back so much until you're a minimalist living in a van, doing intermittent fasting and picking up pennies off the ground. Everyone will get to a point eventually where you cannot possibly save any more money. At that point, you should begin to shift your efforts from, instead of saving more money, learning how to increase your income. This could be learning a new skill, picking up a side job, looking into switching careers, or smashing the like button—you name it!

The point is increasing your income is the necessary last step when it comes to saving more money. Just like you can get to the point where you cannot possibly save any more, you can also get to the point where you cannot possibly work any more hours in the day. It's for that reason that I like any available results-paid business.

This could be sales, affiliate marketing, or any sort of online business—basically any business that pays you out based on your results and not how many hours you work. I really believe that it's by implementing these strategies slowly over time and then sticking with it that will give you the potential to end up saving a lot of money without really even realizing it until you take a look at your bank account and you see a whole bunch of extra Benjamins that are there now that weren't there before.

So with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching! I really appreciate it. If you guys enjoy videos like this, make sure to always smash that like button, smash the subscribe button, smash the notification bell—so you're notified anytime I post a video! Also, feel free to add me on Instagram. I post pretty much daily, so if you want to be a part of it there, feel free to add me there.

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