20 Quick Tips To Saving Your Way To A Million Dollars

Being able to save a million dollars is a dream for many, but it shouldn’t stay a dream. You have the power to make it a goal, and eventually a reality. Many of us wish to have such a large amount on our hands, and yet most of us don’t get past wishing. In other words, we want it, but are not willing to work for it. Well then, that would be the first step into saving your first million dollars - to change that mindset. The good news is that there are a lot of things that you could try out to earn and save to meet those seven digits. Here are 20 ways on how you could make and save a million dollars!

1. Don’t Just Save; Save Smart

Advice that is so old, it is almost cliche. The thing about cliches is that they are almost always true. You just have to learn how to save the right way. For starters, you can utilize a money-saving chart that works best for you. Consider your resources and set goals. This way, you can keep track of your money, making it easier to organize and manage your finances. Once you get hold of this, the rest becomes easier instantly.

2. How Can You Grow Your Savings?

You can still make a profit from the amount that you manage to save. Do the calculations and venture into peer-to-peer lending (P2P Lending). You can even treat this as a mini business, wherein you are the boss and you choose to whom you lend your money. What you lend will eventually get paid in whole with an added percentage value, or call it your passive income. The good thing is that you can even help acquaintances who might not be eligible or comfortable with applying for traditional loans.

3. Plan Your Retirement Early

It is never too early and no one is ever too young when it comes to having a retirement plan. If you put your mind to it, you can even take advantage of opportunities that even your employer can provide for you. Take the 401k plan or the Roth IRA plan for example. You can decide on a specific amount and it will automatically be deducted monthly. Aside from making your financial management easier, a plan that’s employer-matched can also earn you a “match” for the amount that you settle on.

4. Knowledge Is Power

Before you dive into any venture, it is important to educate yourself first. Planting your money in places without proper guidance would be just like throwing it away. Regarding index fund investing, for instance, books like The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On with Your Life and  The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing could give you the insightful background that you need. The stock market is not predictable either, so baseless guessing could cost you more money than you could ever earn. Learning your way around the charts is a good start, and you are well on your way to a well-informed stock trading.

5. Invest As Early As Possible

The longer you postpone it, the more the money you could lose. Time is essential in investments, and you are already losing more than minutes as we speak. There are a lot of ways to do it aside from the real estate, but it’s still important that you know full well where your money is and where it’s headed. Hence, using an investment growth calculator is wise. This tool considers the variables that are essential in your expenditure - your start and end amount, the return rates, your desired investment length, and additional contributions.

6. Invest As Much As Possible

You could save as much money as you can, but you could not expect it to reach a million anytime soon. Try saving $200,000 per year and you will be able to save a million dollars in 4 years. Look back into your money-saving chart and make a new one including your income, savings rate, expenses, annual and monthly savings, and years it would take your rates to reach a million. Go with the highest rate that you can, invest wisely, and build an investment portfolio on your way. [caption id="attachment_275" align="alignnone" width="696"] Photo from Pixabay[/caption]

7. Trade Stocks To Help Save A Million Dollars

Unlike investing, you must be prepared for the possibility of losing every single penny you put in before entering the stock market. Likewise, you should also be ready to earn and save a million dollars with this venture. A stock market calculator takes on the job of assessing your profits and losses from the stocks that you bought and sold, as well as its return of investment, and break-even share price.

8. Start With A Small Business

Your ideas won’t start earning unless you take the risk of putting at least one of them up as a business. All the big companies you see today once started small. See it as your big break from your day job because, let’s face it, nobody ever gets rich from a 9-5. A small business is a great way to put your passions and hobbies towards helping you save a million dollars while keeping your soul happy!

9. Be A Business Partner

If you are not that keen on being an entrepreneur, you could still be a business partner behind the scenes. Investing in companies is another way to make passive income. The little amount that you help them in starting up could return to you in a larger one in the future. You also have the option to venture as much as a hands-on partner or just sit back and let your money work for you.

10. Find Ways To Make Passive Income

A few might already be mentioned above, yet it’s still worth a point as it is indeed a convenient way to earn more. Sadly, it’s often misunderstood as a too-good-to-be-true shortcut wherein you will earn without investing anything first. Every single way to make passive income requires a minute investment of time, money and effort. What’s a little exertion compared to being able to save a million dollars, right? Put worth in your venture first, and it will give you your value back.

11. Take Time To Analyse Potential Cashback

Several cards, apps, online shops, and sites offer rebates for specific transactions. Taking advantage of such returns can prove useful once its value has accumulated over time. Of course, it will take time to pick options that have such offers, but it’s all worth it in the end.

12. Teach And Share Your Skills

Teaching in classrooms won’t gain you a million dollars, but going online can. You can use your major here, or any useful skills that you want to share with other people. The main investment here is time and effort to create online courses before sharing them with your market.

13. Charge For Your Skills

If teaching is not for you, you can charge for the same skills instead. Your acquaintances might need help with some tasks, and your field of expertise might be just the thing that they need. Before you know it, you are already building your freelance career and an escape route from your 9-5! You better start enhancing your skills as a profitable asset and it all goes towards helping you save a million dollars. [caption id="attachment_276" align="alignnone" width="696"] Photo from Pixabay[/caption]

14. Sell And Create

Selling might as well be the most basic objective of any business. Hence, it’s easier to execute compared to others. Maybe it’s time to reconnect with your inner chef or craftsman self. Try selling your products with your family and friends first, and their testimonies could serve as your primary marketing front. You can also sell your written works and stock photos online.

15. Rent Out Your Property

That parked car in your garage, that extra room in your home or that vacant condo you just vacated could turn into your million-dollar investment. You can list your car to a car rental company or drive it around as an Uber driver, and your properties in sites like Airbnb. But first, you will have to invest a few bucks in restoration, upgrades and maintenance purposes. It takes money to make money, but it does pay you back. Before you know it, you will be well into saving a million dollars.

16. Make More In Your Free Time

Make more time for your investments, exert more effort for your side hustle, and invest more money. Allocate more television time for money-making activities, turn some leisure time to hustle time, and invest more than you spend. Your dollars won’t reach a million if you’re not giving your all into it.

17. Invest In Yourself

Your self is your best asset. Apart from putting money into stocks and retirement accounts, you should also give yourself some upgrades. Keep learning new skills and enhancing old ones. Take online courses. Upgrade your equipment accordingly and have some allowance for other things that you need. The measures that you take in improving yourself as an asset is another important part of your road to saving a million dollars.

18. Maintain Your Current Lifestyle

[caption id="attachment_530" align="alignnone" width="696"] Photo from Unsplash[/caption] Once those figures start going up, most people immediately think of things to spend it on, which shouldn’t be the case. Let your income increase, but don’t let your expenses catch up with the raise. If you let that happen, then you are nowhere near the way to making a million dollars. You are just making money to spend right away and not even letting it grow. Though it is satisfying to treat yourself big time, it would be more rewarding to make the money you earned bigger first.

19. Mind The Fees

With the modernisation of services and transactions comes the convenience of busy daily lives. But then again, nothing ever comes for free. These utilities often come with fees. They may come in small amounts, but if you start calculating up to how much it accumulates, you will realise that these are one of the hindrances in your million-dollar quest. What’s worse is that most of them are automatic and that they fly away without you even seeing it. When you finally come to minding your fees, you can then find ways to curb them or cheaper alternatives. Then, you are well on your way to your bigger earnings.

20. Keep track Of All Expenditure

Last but not least, you should always keep track of your monetary activities. Record your income, savings, and expenses. Make a separate sheet for each of your revenue sources and investments. By doing so, you would not only know where your money goes; you would also learn more of how much it could grow for what lengths of time.

Conclusion

When you have finally reached your first million, it’s better to have a prior plan of how to keep it going and how to grow it. It might be that the holidays are fast approaching or that you have a single goal in mind, hence you searching for such tips. Still, your hard-earned money would be much sweeter if it goes a longer way than a one-time big-time expense. These are just a few of the things that you could do to earn and save up. Whichever of these points you decide to work on, always remember to consistently have a plan, keep track of your finances and get your head in the game. Once you decide to take advantage of all the opportunities available in this day and age, you would realise that getting your first million dollars is not as difficult as you think.