Save your Money

Save your Money–I think this is a statement that's foreign to many people nowadays. The debt level of so many Canadians has grown bigger and bigger in recent times. This has been encouraged by current record low interest rates. But experts fear that if they happen to rise a lot of people won't be able to deal with it. So we all have to be very careful. Don't spend what you don't have.

One way to save your money is to buy only what you need (versus what you want). Let's face it, we all have plenty of wants. That's a problem I've dealt with in the past. I liked clothes and I would often go shopping. At one point I dug through my things at home and discovered I had 20-30 pairs of pants (some of which I rarely wore). I believe many others aren't unlike me in this way. We walk into a store and see something we like and without thinking about it put it on our credit card.

Don't necessarily buy name brand. Sometimes you can save a lot by purchasing generic or less well known brands for certain things. Or, if there's a particular brand you can't live without, try buying off season (for clothes or sports equipment like bicycles or skis etc.) when stores are trying to clear their shelves for new merchandise.

Don't forget–The Little Things Add Up! $3 for that caffè latte and $1.50 for multi-grain bagel in the morning, plus $4 for a juice and blueberry muffin for your mid-afternoon snack may seem like pocket change now. But, it really adds up in the long run. And most people will buy more than that throughout the day. You can be sure of it. Instead of going out, why not bring snacks to work or have them at home? You can save a lot by doing that.

We have to prepare ourselves for the future. It's a fact of life, we're all going to get old. At one point we either won't be able to or won't want to work any more. We can't and shouldn't rely on the government to supplement our income with things like pensions or Old Age Security.

Right now there's a huge number of baby boomers nearing retirement age. Our tax dollars will be stretched to the limit trying to care for them. With the way things are going who knows if there will be anything left when we reach that stage in our lives. The only people we can rely on is ourselves.

It's imperative we save our own money and invest it wisely. It's never too late to start. If you haven't already done so, today is the day to start.