Help create the future you’ve always wanted by following these practical steps for becoming a better saver.

Saving can be a struggle, even at the best of times. Unexpected fees beset us from all sides, we lose jobs, motivation, get distracted by expensive things. Luckily, there are numerous ways we can lower our expenditure and make our coin last longer.

Below I’ve compiled a list of 12 essential tips to help you become more financially responsible, and save smarter for the things you desire most.

Set Goals

There's no better way to stay disciplined with your savings than to set goals, budgets, and deadlines. This will pay serious dividends when it comes to staying on track with savings, and give you a sense of progress which can be an amazing motivator.

You can even set up progress rewards for each time you reach a certain threshold with your savings. But rather than making the reward "I'll allow myself to spend $100 on new shoes," make it something related to your end savings goal (unless of course your end savings goal is new shoes).

For example, if you're saving to buy a house, allow yourself to start visiting open homes when you reach the 80% mark. Or if you're saving for a trip to France, reward yourself by purchasing flights when you get to 50% of your savings goal, or at 25% by purchasing a new suitcase.

This way, you will not only be contributing towards your goals even as you reward yourself for reaching them, but you'll also get yourself more excited and therefore more determined for the thing towards which you are saving.

Appreciate What You've Got

In a world full of glamorisation and manipulative media, one of the most widely suffered problems in modern society is the inability to feel satisfied. Advertisers prey upon our insecurities, forever insisting that you'll never be respected by your peers until you own the latest phone, or the fanciest handbag, or the most expensive car.

Well, guess what . . . they're liars. That hole in your heart will never be assuaged by material things, so learn to love yourself, and love what you've got.

Sometimes that means self-improvement: asking yourself who you want to be, what you need to do to get there, and putting in the work. Sometimes it means learning how to be grateful for the few things you do own, rather than worry about what you don't. Sometimes it means getting therapy.

There is a different solution to happiness for all of us. But I can assure you that the answer is never buying more crap.

Once you learn to pluck the leeches of materialism from your skin, your savings will skyrocket.

Go Visual

One of the most effective ways to get better at saving is to write your progress down and look at it. Turn your savings plan into something concrete and tangible that you can refer back to every day.

Get a whiteboard, or print out a large sheet detailing exactly how much your regular expenses are costing you each month, how much you want to save, and how long it's going to take to get there. Mark off your milestones as you go along to really get a sense of how well you're doing.

Another trick is to compartmentalise whatever it is you're saving for. If it's a holiday, break it down into Accommodation expenses, Food expenses, Flights, etc., so that you don't lose hope staring at one big, scary-looking number.

Eat Smarter

If there's one thing I have learned since transitioning from a pay-check-to-pay-check lifestyle to one of frugality, it's that nothing drains your finances more insidiously than food.

As humans, we have to eat, which makes it perilously easy to spend boatloads of cash on food every day without even realising it.

At least, not until we reach the end of the month and look at our bank statement.

The good thing about this is that there is an enormous amount of money that can be saved just by taking a more intelligent approach to how we fill our bellies. I've found that if I cook all my dinners, make all my lunches and coffees, and don't let the temptation of counter snacks lure me into spending more than intended, I save a fortune.

Here's a realistic example. In one week, without doing any of the steps mentioned above, I might spend:

$15 a day on dinners
$10 a day on lunches
$5 a day on fancy coffee
$2 a day on snacks

That's $32 a day, or $224 a week just on food and drink.

And that's only if I'm going to the store myself, and not using UberEats which adds another $10 or so for delivery, tips, and service fees.

Instead, if I purchase all these things at a supermarket and prepare all my meals myself, I usually spend around $100 a week. And that includes anything else I might need for the week too - breakfast ingredients, toiletries, etc.

That's a saving of over 50% every week.

In a single month, I'm able to save an extra $500 a month on food alone.

Don't Spend Your Change

It's easy to "treat yourself" when you have extra money leftover from your pay-check, or when you receive an unexpected lump of cash in the form of a tax refund or birthday present.

But if instead of viewing unexpected cash as an opportunity to go shopping you see it as a speed boost for your savings plan, you will be much better for it in the long-term.

By being smart about how you manage unanticipated income, you have the option to acquire the thing you were saving for sooner.

You will also experience a sense of satisfaction as the numbers in your savings account leapfrog.

Don't Be Lazy

It's easy to get comfortable relying on the services of others to help us in our everyday life. We get so used to living this way that we often forget that many of these things we're paying other people to do for us, we once did for ourselves.

By replacing taxi rides with driving yourself around, or using public transport; managing your own accounts; using the internet to teach yourself the things you hire tutors for, and taking responsibility for other tasks that you would normally outsource, you can really begin to minimise your expenses.

Don't Be Fussy Over Brands

An important lesson to learn in life: brands are meaningless.

These days, the effectiveness of online marketing has reached such heights that the majority of people are being manipulated by ads every single day. For many people, the packaging on a box of cereal is enough to convince them they should spend an extra $5 on a product that has the same ingredients as the budget-brand alternative.

My point is, don't be fussy.

Nobody else cares what you're wearing; most people are too busy worrying about maintaining their own clinical obedience to the addiction of consumerism. As far as groceries go, you'll save so much more money every week if you stop buying the brands that are advertised on TV and opt for the budget brands instead. Chances are, your tastebuds won't even notice the difference.

At the end of the day, what do you truly care about?

Is it having a big white tick on the side of your track pants?

Or is it reaching your savings goal much faster because you understand that a logo doesn't have any tangible value in reality?

Stop and Smell the Roses

Another valuable skill for saving money is learning how to take your time. Whether that applies to mundane things in your daily routine, or while you're out and about on a special errand, there are plenty of opportunities in our everyday life to slow down and really think about the moment we're in.

So often, we waste valuable time and money by trying to get unpleasant tasks out of the way quickly.

Unfortunately, this usually results in things not being done properly and needing to be done again - at double the expense. By doing things right the first time, you save yourself the hassle and financial loss of having to do it again.

Life is long, treat it as such.

Categorise Your Expenditure

A great way to break down your monthly costs is to split all your expenditures into 2 categories: Necessary and Nice.

In the Necessary column, list everything you absolutely NEED to survive. These are things like:

Rent
Bills
Food
Petrol (if you don't have access to public transport)
Toothpaste

In the Nice column, list everything you DON'T need to survive. This could be:

Video games
Concert tickets
Subscriptions
New clothes
Tattoos

Just don't lie to yourself; deep down, you know what is actually important and what's just a luxury.

Now go through and see how many of the items in the Nice column you can live without. If you're really passionate about saving, it could be all of them.

Just don't go sacrificing your mental health for the sake of a few dollars. If culling all your extra expenses is a bit much, try aiming for 50%. Do you have Amazon Prime, Netflix, AND Disney Plus accounts?

I'm sure we can both agree that you don't need all three. Look for other overlaps that are hurting your wallet and eliminate them.

Cull and Sell

Don't let your old stuff sit around taking up space around the house. Turn it into cash!

Whether that means holding a garage sale, making an account on eBay or Craigslist, or just posting on social media to let your friends know that you've got some stuff to sell - get rid of it!

It can be hard letting go of things we already own, especially if we spent a lot of money on them. But you'll find it much easier with the knowledge that you can get some of that money back.

Like many of the tips on this list, it all comes back to learning to be less attached to meaningless material things and focusing your finances on the things you need.

Compare Prices

There's always a better deal. It doesn't matter if you're looking at insurance, food, clothes, video games . . . the first price tag you see is rarely the cheapest one.

You can find many places online to help with comparing prices for just about any type of goods.

More often than not, the price of a product doesn't just vary between brands, but also between shops. Know which supermarket has the cheapest vegetables, and which has the cheapest milk. Or where to get laptops and other tech gear at imported prices, rather than the standard retail price.

Don't Be Rash

So much of the arbitrary spending people do is done so on a whim. We see an advertisement for a flashy bit of tech or get a sudden craving for strawberry gelato, and suddenly feel compelled to buy it right there and then. This is especially the case with online shopping, especially as ads are now craftily catered to your specific desires, and buying online is only a matter of clicks.

But have ever noticed how, immediately after purchasing something compulsively, you feel an empty feeling of regret?

This is because you'll never find contentment through buying material things. You were so excited for the promised happiness in an ad for any given product that when you click the Buy button and nothing happens, you suddenly feel deflated.

The solution is to be more conscious of these moments when the urge to buy something comes over you. Tell yourself you'll think about it for another day, or a week before you commit. More often than not, the feeling will pass and you'll realise it would've been a total waste of money, had you gone through with the purchase.

12 Helpful Tips for Saving Money