Saving for a holiday can be a challenge and most times I would only start saving a month or two before going on a holiday trip. But what if you could only start saving from October for your December holiday and still have an additional R8000 to spend?
Saving money over a long period is not easy when you don’t have much extra after paying your monthly expenses. The method mentioned below only requires some small adjustments in your monthly budget but the rewards of it would mean that you have an extra R5000 – R8000 to spend on your holiday.
What can be done with R8000?
Well i’m sure you can think of something but here are a few ideas:
- It could cover your travel expenses
- It could cover your vehicle service and new tyres
- Pay your holiday accommodation
- It would allow you to give your wife and kids extra spending money for the holiday
- You could purchase more gifts
- You could do more activities while on holiday
- You could purchase the kids school stationary
and most importantly it will help relief the stress caused by your holiday budget running out too early.
How do I save you ask?
Well as I mentioned before it will require some adjustment to your monthly spending habits. Here is how I saved R1300 per month on non necessity items:
Cellphone contracts
I had four cellphone contracts which was costing me around R1200 per month. Luckily for me three of them were already expired and I was paying vodacom on a month to month basis but the amount was the same as when I was tied to the contract.
I done some reasearch and found packages that were cheaper but would still serve my needs and also moved one contract to prepaid thus saving R300 per month. Thats R3600 over 12 months!
Netflix
R169 per month for the premium package and you saying that’s not much for the convenience especially when its often used to baby sit the kids (bad idea btw). If you are a bit tech savvy and know how to download video content from the internet then you could be adding another R2028 to your December holiday trip by canceling your Netflix account.
Eating out
Depending on the size of your family, eating out can cost you between R200 – R600 on average per meal.
If you eating out every weekend and spending R300 thats R1200 on take aways. Put a fixed amount in an envelope for eating out and perhaps don’t eat out for one weekend of the month and you could save R250 per month x 12 = R3000
DSTV
The DSTV premium package costs R819 per month (R9828 per year) showing the same content over and over and over again. But lets say you were on the DSTV Compact like I was, terminating it would help you save R4788 over 12 months.
Bank Fees
I used to bank with ABSA but since moving to Capitec I save just under R200 per month on banking fees
Going further
Other ways you could save is to switch your geyser off and get your domestic worker or gardener to wash your car instead of taking it to the car wash.
Obviously you would have some other expenses that I don’t, so I suggest you look into your expenses because if you don’t know where your money is going how would you know where you can save?
Based on the above figures I managed to save R13,600 in a year.
But I just can’t save!
Neither can I. Because if I have R2000 in my account after covering all my expenses for the month I’d be on Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace looking for something to buy. So I decided to pay some of my monthly expenses in advance.
You could pay your full savings for the month to one account or spread it over a few accounts. If you paying R5000 on rent then pay R5000 plus the savings. If you paying Vodacom, MTN, Telkom mobile or Cell C R1000 per month then pay them R1500 etc.
That way you would have R8000 less to pay in December and R8000 more to use during your holiday.
The saying “Every cent counts” is true but its not always easy to see it in a single month. But when added up over 12 months it can amount to a decent saving.
Also, book your accommodation on StayHalaal early to avoid last minute dissapointments
