Super saving tips from super savers

Super saving tips from super savers

I recently checked out this advice from some super savers, including some tips from my friend Justin Bouchard from this well-known personal finance site.  After reviewing the article I thought – how well do I follow these tips? 

I wrote about it and now I know…

On budget busters

I don’t pick up my “favourite latte on the way to work” as Ms. Walkington, the money coach interviewed in the article, suggests you avoid.  So, point for us there I guess.   We make our own coffee and drink it at home.

Far beyond coffees and lattes, dining out is one of the biggest budget busters out there but we actually do dine out every now and again.  Why?  Because we like it.  When do we do it?  After we pay ourselves first of course.   We believe this is a better way to budget.   This way after we pay ourselves first we pretty much spend whatever we want from there and enjoy our life.

On goal setting

I think we’re very realistic with our retirement goals – although it’s taken a LONG time to get to where we are and we have more work to do.  We do, as Mr. Nolan (an advisor from the article) suggests:  we break our financial goals into manageable segments.  You can see an example of that over the years here.

On making plans

“To be a “super saver,” you’d better be a super planner.”

We try and do that often.

We don’t have a % savings target for each month.  Instead, we strive to max out our TFSAs every year (done for 2018) and we’re working on maxing out our RRSPs as well (my account is now full; working on my wife’s outstanding contribution room.)   After that we focus on killing debt – making more than our minimum mortgage payment.  That’s about it.  Like I mentioned above, we save first and then spend some money that is leftover.

On investing wisely

I agree with what my friend Justin contributed to the article – cut back on fees.  If you use a robo-advisor, “…you can go down to 0.5 per cent.”  Good advice.  For new investors or seasoned investors alike, if you want to cut your costs AND get some helpful portfolio advice consider these partnerships and deals to SAVE BIG.

On paying off credit cards – every month

Done.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t own one because you are spending money you don’t have.

On negotiating fixed costs

We use a mortgage broker to help us get a great rate on borrowing costs.  Actually, here are some mortgage tips for all ages.

I don’t switch up my cell phone plan very often because I have a good, grandfathered rate plan – I pay about $55 per month for unlimited Canada-wide talk, text and 3 GB of data.  I like using my data whenever I want so going without data isn’t really worth it for me.

On sharing a car

Total fail on this one but we do own both of our cars.  Maybe we get partial points on this one since we have no car payment (and haven’t had one in many years) and we carpool as often as we can to keep gas, maintenance and wear-and-tear costs on either vehicle down.  Keeping two cars is temporary though.  We will be moving in two years and we’ll go down to one car in the city.  We estimate that owing one car (vs. two) should save us about $300 per month.

On building tax-free savings accounts

Already there Mr. Nolan we use “tax-free accounts for the long-term future, not the short-term, because the real power of tax-free savings accounts is in the compounding tax-free growth.”  We’ve used our TFSAs as a retirement account pretty much from Day 1.  I would suggest you should do the same!

Overall, good tips for many Canadians to take advantage of.  If you want more insight on how to become wealthy, consider this self-made millionaire assessment guide.

What do you make of these tips?  Anything else you’d suggest?  Anything else you did to become the super saver that you are?