5 Wealth-Building Tips for People Living on a Low or Fixed Income – Business Insider
- Dyana King saves 30% of her income and coaches other single moms about personal finance.
- She said on a tight income, saving can feel impossible, but consistency is important.
- Tracking spending, making a budget that works for you, and getting a side job you like can help.
Building wealth when you live paycheck-to-paycheck can be hard and take a great deal of time and patience, but Dyana King, a 30-year-old single mom of two who saves 30% of her income, says it’s not impossible.
When King first decided to prioritize her finances, she was $35,000 in debt and earning about $32,000 per year. Today, King is debt-free, works a day job as a curriculum and course developer, and has a side hustle as a personal finance influencer, blogger, and YouTuber known as Money Boss Mama.
King told Insider that she loves talking about personal finance, and coaches clients who are also single moms in positions similar to where she has been in the past. She gave five tips for increasing your savings when you’re working with a fixed income.
1. Tracking spending closely can curb impulsive spending
About her clients, King said, “they normally come to me because they’re blowing their money, and have no idea where it’s going.”
Often, King’s clients will tell her that they don’t have enough money, and aren’t able to save or pay off debt at all, “but in reality,” she said, “they just don’t have a budget, and they can’t stay consistent.”
When King sits down with them and shows them how much of their money is spent impulsively because they didn’t have a plan in place, they start to feel more confident about their ability to save or pay off debt. “A lot of us don’t keep track of our spending,” King said. “So it’s easy to feel like we don’t have it, when really it’s just going to somebody else.”
2. Consistency is the most important part of saving
When King first started working on a savings plan to get herself out of debt when she was making $32,000 per year, she was only able to start with an extra savings of $15 per month. Even though this initial amount was very small, King said that it was crucial to start forming saving as a new habit.
“Was it helping a lot? No — but it was getting me into the habit of remaining consistent and having that discipline of sending that extra money over,” she said. “One thing that really trips us up as single parents is just that patience and consistency. We want everything to happen right now, and …….
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/wealth-building-tips-low-income-living-check-to-check-2022-6