We all keep growing in our career/business and accordingly our earnings also increase. Please check if your savings have also increased in proportional of increase in your earnings. If the answer is "Yes" then you are already doing an excellent job in managing your money but if your answer is "No" then read it further to check what can be done to increase your savings.
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Change the formula of your savings. Plan your approximate saving and take it out periodically, plan your expenses after taking out your savings.
if your formula of saving is: Income - Expenses = Saving
then you need to change it to: Income - Saving = Expenses
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Automate your savings, do not rely on manual savings. There should be a way, where some portion of your salary leaves your bank account and gets invested on its own. Because if you leave this to manual action, it is not going to be consistent.
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Whenever your income increases , have a habit of increasing your automated saving by at least 25% of your increased earning otherwise very soon you may build the habit of spending the complete amount. Life keeps throwing new requirements and if money is available , requirements become needs and we keep spending.
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Forced saving works very well, look at the example of EPF, this is a mandatory saving for all the salaried people and I am sure if govt gives us a option, many will not choose EPF.
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Do not keep money in your regular account that you use for your regular expenses, if you see the money you will plan some expenses. You might also be the one whose friends and relatives keeps calling regularly and you are not able to say "No" because you are seeing that money is available in your account. Use your discretion to fulfill such demands and automated saving will make sure you don't see surplus in your bank.
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If you are the one who waits for the salary every month for some expenses, then think will it change if your salary gets incremented, probably then also you would wait every month for some expenses, because your expenses are also growing with your earning, on the same lines your savings should grow with your earnings. What could be the worst case scenario with automated savings, you might end up taking it back and that is ok but again you might not be consistent with this behavior and at last you will save some money for you.
I am not asking you to compromise on your expenses and your entertainment but to be genuine in your expenses and savings, a lot of people live in this myth that financial planning is all about compromising on your desires and spending. No its not, its opposite, financial planning helps you to be disciplined in your financial life and achieve all your financial goals and dreams.
"It is not about How much money you make but how much money you save and how hard it works for you"
