Why You Don’t See Results From Your Money-Saving Efforts

by Andrea Norris-McKnight

You take steps to cut costs. So why don’t you ever have any extra money? Maybe you’re making these budgeting and spending mistakes.

Do you ever wonder why your many money-saving efforts never seem to result in extra money at the end of each month or a bigger savings account balance?

Perhaps you’re using coupons at the grocery store, and you’ve started eating lunch at work more often than eating out. Maybe you’ve shopped for a better auto insurance rate and begun shopping for most of your clothes at thrift stores or online resale shops.

Where are all of your savings?

Chances are, you’re making some very common yet easy-to-correct mistakes. See if any of the following explains why you don’t see results from your money-saving efforts.

You Don’t Have a Budget

If you don’t have a budget, you can’t tell whether you’re saving money or not.

Just because you’ve plugged your leaky food budget doesn’t mean your savings aren’t leaking out of other budget categories. A budget will prove that some of your money-saving efforts are working and help you find your spending leaks so you can plug them.

You Don’t Track Your Savings (or Your Spending)

Maybe you have a budget. But perhaps your idea of managing it entails pulling out your bank and credit card statements at the end of each month to figure out your income and expenditures. If this is the case, you’ll likely end up over budget in many spending categories.

A budget is only helpful if you use it to determine how much you can spend — not merely to see how much you did spend. Before any non-essential expenditure, check your budget to see how much you have left to spend in that budget category.

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You Aren’t Moving Those Savings Into Savings

When you do come in under budget on food or any other budget category for the month, what do you do with that extra money? If you aren’t moving it into savings or using it for some other planned goal, such as putting it toward debt or tucking it away for a vacation, then you aren’t really saving it.

Any time you come in under budget, make sure you’re using the money for some goal.

You’re Buying Too Many Bargains

Buying something on sale will only save you money if you need the item now or sometime soon. For your budget, “soon” could mean next week or a few months from now.

Sure, saving $2 per bottle on 12 bottles of shampoo is a great money-saver, but not if it prevents you from putting money into your savings account. The key is to find a good balance between bargain shopping and building savings. To truly save, you never want one to prevent you from taking advantage of the other.

Be Intentional With Your Savings

The best way to hold on to your savings is to move it out of your checking or other account you use for your everyday bills and expenditures. And then make a plan for that saved money, whether for a short- or long-term savings goal. Otherwise, you might end up using it for some unplanned discretionary expense that will leave you scratching your head, wondering where your money went.

Reviewed February 2024