Income Sensitive: Why How Much You Make Means Little To Saving Money

One of the more common phrases uttered when it comes to saving money is that you don’t make enough to save enough.

If stressed enough, it’s easy to believe, whether you’re the one who is saying it or if you’re trying to convince someone else about your money woes and lack of savings.

But the truth is that saving money, in its purest and most real sense, isn’t about income like you’d think. Sure, if you made a million dollars a year, you’d have no trouble saving money, but is that true?

You read about couples and families who somehow live with five in a household on a $30,000 per year salary, just the same way you hear about millionaires who are in debt up to their eyeballs.

Granted, those stories certainly can flip in an instant, but it’s not as if those examples above aren’t legitimate occurrences.

The trick to saving money is understanding your income beyond the dollars and cents and formulating a budget that works within what you make. Just because someone makes $100,000 per year doesn’t mean they’ll set up without any effort to save money. In fact, a recent study showed that about 40 percent of people who get raises or better jobs that put more money in their pocket, the less they can save.

Why is that? Because most don’t keep their expenses the same but rather add to them, whether that’s a new car and another payment every month or immediately upgrading their place of living (i.e. from a rental to buying).

No matter what your tax return says, regardless of what that income total is, you can build a system of saving money that works. You should save about, on average, 15 percent of your gross income each year, and the only way that is attainable is if you have a budget that allows you to do it.

No magic tricks or experts, just you, pencil and paper and a willingness to make sure that you’re simply spending less than you make and have enough leftover to stir the pot in your favor and start banking the leftover money.

If you’re still stuck on your income as being the sole reason you can’t save, that’s an excuse that doesn’t hold an ounce of water when you consider there’s always someone who makes less than you out there who still can save.

There’s no reason you can’t be the next success story waiting to happen, and that has nothing to do with your paycheck.