Here are three ways you can get disgustingly good at saving without actually having to increase your income.

Here are three ways you can get disgustingly good at saving without actually having to increase your income. I'm Holly. I'm a student, but I think I'm very good at saving because I've actually been able to build a 28k net worth within my first three years of uni. As much as this advice isn't complicated, I hope it's helpful as someone who has used it firsthand and seen results. Firstly, and I hope this doesn't sound too wishy-washy, but I do believe this has probably been one of the most impactful things that has led to my personal finance journey and saving, and that is attaching meaning to your goals. Before you actually make a budget or you start saving, you actually need to think about why am I doing this? What am I doing this for? And trust me, it will energize you and motivate you so much. For some people, that might be saving for something in specific, like a car or even a house. But for others, like myself, I just think the thought of building something for yourself, actually being financially secure by the time I'm 30, it's so motivating, it's so empowering, and attaching that meaning to it just makes that saving feel really easy. It removes the need for discipline because it's actually something you want to be doing. Secondly, understand the difference between fixed and variable costs, and then work out where you can adjust those variable costs. If you don't know, your fixed costs are the costs that are the same every month, which makes it quite easy to budget those. You know what your bills are going to be, etc, etc. When you're making your budget, I would first take those off because you know you can't change them. But then you focus on your variable costs, and you see where you can make changes. For example, your food shop, as much as you need to eat, it is a variable cost because it is somewhere where you can save, and you could control how much you spend. One method that really helps me bring down my food shop, for example, is using the pots method. I use the app Monzo. I create a savings pot specifically for my food shop every week, add 30 pounds to it, and once I see that 30 pounds is low, I know that I can't spend much more than that, and it really does work. Of course, it's also about identifying where you're spending on things that maybe you don't necessarily need, or you can cut out for now, just to be able to save that bit extra. And finally, I think this is so important and it's so habitual, and it's paying yourself first. And I don't mean treating yourself to a new top from Zara. I mean paying future you, putting that in savings before you work out the rest. Some people might find this uncomfortable because they think I need to pay my bills first, but actually, you will find if you pay yourself first, and of course you've made a budget allowing for the amount of bills you have to pay, it will just motivate you so much because you know you've already saved, and you will work with what you've got left, and you will find ways, if you don't have enough money to spend on going out for dinner, it will force you to be resourceful and you'll start side hustling or something like that. I love this philosophy, I love this habit, and it's a really useful tool to just make things very black and white and get you disgustingly good at saving.