how you can save $$ hundreds $$ /month

Here's an article from my newsletter. I give step-by-step instructions for how I personally save hundreds of dollars a month. It's simple and works like a charm:

#1 –Step-by-Step How to Save Money + Tips

I could talk about this for days, and I could easily write a book about it…hmm, there’s an idea…. For now, here is a short, step-by-step guide to saving money and some tips at the end.

a. Save ALL your receipts for one week. Hold on to everything, from the receipt for that 99 cent pack of gum to the receipt from the gas station.

b. Make a budget. This is how much you are currently spending. Worry about your future budget later. You can get a reasonably good idea of monthly expenses from one week. I recommend doing this on an Excel spreadsheet. Categorize each expense. For example, you will need a category for restaurants. If you spent $6 that week in McDonalds, $15 at Panera, and $33 at a fancy restaurant, you would put $54 for that week under the “Restaurants” category. Check out the budget I made for myself (for Switzerland) in an excel spreadsheet here. For monthly expenses like my $440 rent, I broke it down into a weekly expense ($110/week). You don’t even need to know how to use excel. You can simply edit my categories and replace them with your own categories. The “total/week” and “total/month” will automatically change for you.

c. Review your budget. I’m sure you can find ways to save. How many expenses can you cut down? Did you really need that extra $5 beer at the bar? That’s $20 a month right there…

d. Now subtract all the money that you plan on saving per week. Ex: I want to spend $5 less on candy/week, $15 less on groceries/week…etc.

e. Change your budget accordingly. Ex: after making the changes in step d., your candy budget will be $10/week instead of $15. Your grocery budget will be $50 instead of $65…etc. Congratulations, you now have a NEW BUDGET! Stick to this, and you will find yourself saving hundreds of dollars per month like magic!