92% of people don't know that this method of saving money exists

1. Learn to budget and understand your finances

Our most important tip for saving money fast is pretty simple: Learn to budget. If you’re in control of your budget, you’re in control of your finances. But where to start?

Before you can start saving money every month, you need to come to grips with your cash flow. This means understanding all of your incoming and outgoing revenue streams, including any debt repayments, monthly bills and savings contributions.

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Here’s how to create a budget so you can start saving fast:

1. Keep track of all of your finances over a 30-day period. This includes all of your income and expenditures.

2. Compare your monthly income to your monthly expenditures to assess how much you’re currently managing to save, or how much you’re overspending each month.

3. Separate your expenditures into fixed and variable costs. Your fixed costs are expenses that are typically difficult to adjust, such as your rent and utility bills. Your variable costs include more readily-adjustable expenditures such as groceries, entertainment and subscription services.

4. Identify any variable costs that you can start cutting back on to increase how much you can put towards your savings goals each month.

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5. Assess your progress regularly and make adjustments if necessary. If this seems a little overwhelming, there are plenty of budgeting apps available that can help make sticking to your budget easier.

2. Get out of debt

Before you start saving, you’ll likely want to pay off any outstanding balances on your existing debts. The longer you delay paying off a debt, the larger it becomes. That’s because interest — the price you pay for borrowing money — continues to add up over time. If you put off paying your debts, the interest that accrues can wipe out any money you manage to save up.

To get out of debt quickly, consider using a budgeting method such as the 50/30/20 budget. Created by US senator Elizabeth Warren when she was a Harvard bankruptcy specialist, the 50/30/20 rule offers a simplified approach to getting out of debt. It works as follows:

-Use 50% of your income on your needs, i.e. your fixed costs such as rent and utility bills.

-Use 30% of your income on your wants, i.e. your variable costs such as dining out and subscription services.

-Save 20% of your income. So, if you make $2500 a month after tax, this would mean you can put aside $500 a month. In just a year, you’ll have paid off $6000 worth of debt.

3. Create a designated savings account

To save money fast, you need to separate the money you spend on your daily needs from the money you intend to save. This means setting up a designated savings account.

By doing so, you minimize the risk of you dipping into your savings funds to cover daily expenses. Instead, it encourages you to stick within your day-to-day budget while keeping your savings safe from temptation!

4. Automate your savings

If you have a fixed monthly income, consider automating your savings contributions each month. This means setting up an automated transfer from your daily spending account to your savings account each month. By automating your savings, you further reduce your chance of using these funds to cover your daily expenses.

To make saving a little easier, consider creating your own Rules on N26 Spaces. Rules is an in-app feature that lets you automatically move money between your main account and your Spaces. It’s a great “hands-off” way to kickstart your savings.