Falling Behind on Your Savings Goals? Try These 3 Simple Strategies.

In the United States, the average American carries $104,215 in debt across all their loans and credit cards. This is a staggering amount that can cause people to quickly fall behind on their savings goals. If you are feeling this kind of financial pressure, try these 3 simple strategies to build your financial independence. 

First, let’s start with a money mindset tip.

Please remember that your money mindset directly affects your financial success. Financial strain and debt stress can limit your thinking, which also restricts the possibilities and opportunities you can see. If you keep the question, “How can I?” at the forefront of your thinking, you will engage your curiosity, and you might be surprised at the creative solutions that come to mind as you work through each of the strategies below. 

 

 

Strategy #1: Identify and reduce discretionary spending. 

Through no fault of our own, we can find ourselves in financial difficulty, causing us to fall behind on our savings goals. Emergency situations, job loss or illness are a few examples of things that can affect our savings plan. With that kind of financial stress, it’s easy to put on blinders and ignore the difficulties, but to overcome financial setbacks, you must know your numbers. That means assessing everything, including all sources of debt. From there, you can build a debt management strategy to improve your finances and increase your savings. 

Part of your discretionary financial planning will include:

• Limiting spending to essential expenses only. To get back on track and achieve your savings goals, you will need to restrict spending to necessities, until you are able to start working your savings plan again. The necessities include things like your mortgage, rent, utilities, groceries and living expenses. It does not include non-essential, splurge and impulse spending like streaming channels you rarely watch, convenience services like food delivery or those little items at the checkout that don’t cost a lot but add up over the month. 

>>CLICK HERE to get tips to control spending habits and improve financial wellness.<<

• Engaging a debt reduction strategy. Every dollar you can save in interest is a dollar you can put toward reducing your debt, and once that is paid off, toward achieving your savings goals. Reducing your debt isn’t difficult, but it does require your dedication and consistency. 

Strategy #2: Consider ways to increase your income.

If you review your numbers and you find that you are unable to reach your savings goals with your current income and/or you’d like to make more money, it’s time to consider various ways to expand your means. 

To do that, you can:

• Ask for a raise
• Expand your product or service lines
• Develop intellectual property
• Take on freelance work
• Start a part-time job
• Start a business

On that last point, it is good to know that it has never been easier to start a business, without having to invest much money or any at all! There are many options, like setting up an online store, engaging in drop shipping, or a home-based business such as tutoring, pet sitting, catering or selling homemade products. 

With your debt under control and your income expanded, you will be able to save money faster and then you can further develop your financial success strategy. 

 

Strategy #3: Engage smart investment strategies.

The reality is, you will not retire rich if you put your money into a savings account. The interest rates are far too low, and most often, don’t even meet the rate of inflation. That means you are losing money in the long run!

This is why you need to engage smart investment strategies to make your money really work for you! There is, however, so much to know in the financial and investment world. To cut down the amount of time it takes to learn how to invest your money successfully, work with a mentor or financial advisor who has a proven track record and a repeatable strategy you can follow step by step. If you do what they have already done, you will achieve financial independence much faster than trying to do it on your own. 

A qualified financial planner or money mentor will have a variety of strategies that will likely include, among other things:

• Real estate
• REITs
• Stocks and equities
• Annuities
• Rental and vacation properties

There are more than the traditional ways of investing to make money and increase your income streams. It’s important to be open to a variety of options and always remember that each one has different associated risks. Make sure you understand what those risks are and that they feel okay to you. If they don’t, do not invest. And always be wary of any get rich quick schemes, in my experience they very rarely work out.

Building wealth takes patience and consistency. Be diligent with your savings and investing strategies and work your financial plan persistently, and you will see the results that will deliver financial independence. 

When it comes to success strategies for financial freedom, one of the best books you can read is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. In it, Hill draws on the experience of Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and other millionaires of his generation, to outline the steps that anyone can follow to build financial independence. 

In Think and Grow Rich for Women, I was given the honor of sharing Hill’s timeless collection of success principles from the perspective of and with insights from some of the world’s most successful businesswomen. While the rules for financial success are the same for everyone, women approach those rules differently, which affects their results. That is why it’s important to learn how other women make money work for them. 

If you’re ready to learn from the best, get your copy of Think and Grow Rich for Women today!

 

Book Summary:

Think and Grow Rich for Women is a powerful book from Sharon Lechter, the award-winning author of Think and Grow Rich: Three Feet from Gold and coauthor of the multimillion-selling Rich Dad, Poor Dad. It combines Hill’s classic Thirteen Steps to Success with case studies of noteworthy women (including Sandra Day O’Connor, Maya Angelou, Katie Couric, Caroline Kennedy, Madonna, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Thatcher, Condoleezza Rice, J. K. Rowling, Barbara De Angelis, Marianne Williamson, Angela Merkel, Mary Kay Ash, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, and many more), outlining a master plan for success for all women.