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A financial expert has revealed simple tips to help people save hundreds of dollars. With inflation on the rise, many Americans are feeling the pinch as the cost of living increases, particularly when it comes to housing, food, and transportation.
Rudri Bhatt Patel, a certified financial health counselor, advises people to look beyond one-size-fits-all budgeting rules and instead focus on their individual financial situations. She recommends starting small, building momentum, and making gradual changes to make their money work harder.
Patel suggests that people should calculate their real emergency fund target by adding up their essential expenses, such as housing, utilities, and groceries, rather than relying on a generic rule of thumb. She also advises people to measure their progress against their own financial situation, rather than comparing themselves to others.
Additionally, Patel recommends checking fixed costs, such as insurance and streaming services, every year to see if there are cheaper alternatives available. She also suggests writing down income and expenses to identify areas where money can be saved, and making saving automatic by setting up automatic transfers from paychecks.
Other tips include stopping guessing when budgeting and instead using actual numbers from bank and credit card statements, and making idle cash work harder by putting it into a high-yield savings account or investing it.
