On October 31, we mark World Savings Day to promote sustainable saving methods. We invited Natalia Nașco Filimon, Head of Cards at maib, to share useful tips to help you save efficiently.
Apply the 50/30/20 strategy. Before saving, you must divide your monthly budget into fixed and optional, flexible spending.
The split should be as follows:
- 50% of your income will be allocated to fixed expenses, such as paying for home maintenance, rent, and utility bills;
- 30% of income will be allocated to flexible expenditure, such as food, entertainment;
- 20% will be saved in a bank account in MDL or EURO/USD.
Avoid spontaneous or compulsive shopping. The easiest and simplest way to do this is to apply the postpone shopping until the next day rule.
If you feel the urge to buy something unplanned, hold off on buying it to consider whether it is indispensable. Ideally, you should postpone the purchase "until tomorrow", and you may be surprised that by the evening, you no longer find it useful, necessary or attractive.
Get into the habit of analysing your monthly budget. Useful tools for this are mobile apps, which quickly give you an overview that can be researched and detailed.
A well-organised app in this regard is maibank, which shows you the nature of your spending in the previous month and the total amount of money you've directed towards each type of service or product. This will help you adjust your spending in the coming months, should you find that you are allocating more money in one direction or another than you had imagined.
Choose a day of the week when you don't spend any money at all. If possible, you can practice abstaining from spending more days.
The most important aspect of this method is that the money saved on that day is put aside in a bank account in MDL, EURO, USD.
Use your card when shopping. Firstly, you can objectively see the product categories you spend your money on. Secondly, you can save money without giving up the purchases you want if you choose to use the maib gama card, which offers cashback.
What savings methods do you use?
