How to Save Money in Nigeria: 20 simple tips

How to Save Money in Nigeria: 20 simple tips

Everyone needs more money! But not many have developed a good habit of saving more. In this guide, we have put together a list of powerful tips you can use to save some extra cash.

The list consists of some actionable ways to cut back on your spending and ways to make good financial decisions that let you save more.

How do you save money?

1. Save First

The first means to save money on our list is stashing up spare change. Basically, you can save up cash changes you get when you buy things and pay with cash.

The idea is to stash them up somewhere like a jar or safe place. This can really add up over time, especially when you do it with discipline and precision. You can use this type of savings to learn a new skill or start a new business, even if it’s not up to what you might need, it will count towards getting something together to pull a new business through or achieve a goal or cause.

2. Automate your Savings

The game-changer here is to save first, whenever you get paid or make a new profit from your investment.

In the digital age where you spend more electronic money than every, you can also automate your savings, you can use savings and investment platforms such as Piggyvest, Cowrywise, and Sumome to save up for a goal such as paying for house rent, education, etc.

Piggyvest has so many features geared towards helping you to achieve your savings goals. There’s the piggy bank feature called safe lock, it lets you lock your targets for the future. Basically, everything about the app is all about helping you to save and it’s amazing they give so much interest, you get 30 percent per annum.

You can decide to save any amount you want or you can set an autosave deposit where every month or every week you have set you can make your savings without even having to think about it. if you want to save money but you don’t be so strict about it then you can use the FlexDollar to grow your investment in USD.

The Piggyvest mobile app is designed to make investing super easy for Nigerians. There are so many things you can invest in from a poultry farm, a rice farm, maize farming, ginger farm, real estate, and more. Use the link to start saving and investing using the Piggyvest app today and get 1000 Naira bonus.

Make savings your priority and see how you naturally save more.

3. Cancel your TV or Cable subscription

This is amazing, right? Well! It’s not really only about the money you used in subscribing monthly for your cable, even though that’s part of it, but also how about using those times you expend on watching movie series and favorite shows all day and put them into something new that can add to your personal and financial development?

You can commit the time and money to a more profitable hobby or something that can make you more income on the side, maybe like a craft, programming, freelancing, Dropshipping, etc.

4. Sell stuffs you don’t need

If you feel like decluttering your space, you can turn those stuff you don’t need anymore into some extra cash by selling them on classified websites like Jiji or on social media to anyone who might want to buy them. Selling what you’re using can be a powerful way to save thousands.

Earlier, this week, I see someone listed their old fan, mattress, and freezer up for sale on Facebook in an eastern state after she relocated to Lagos.

The idea here is to declutter your space if you have too many unimportant valuables, you can dispose of them for extra cash.

To decide on what to sell, you want to ask if this item or that item is really been used enough to justify if it’s worth keeping, you don’t have to just donate them all, you can sell them to add up to your savings.

5. The 30 day Rule

The 30-day rule is about helping you affirm what you’re trying to spend on at the moment, it helps to be sure it is actually a necessity.

Many people lavish money they ought to save for rainy days or business on less important things simply because they are attracted to the product at first sight (impulse buying).

The 30-day rule maintains that if you see a product or item you are attracted to at first sight and wanted to buy it so badly, instead of just impulsively buying it right on the spot, you make yourself wait for the next 30 days, if it’s something that you really need to have, there’ll still be a need to have it 30 days later.

There’s also the 24-hour rule, this works for me a lot of times, waiting a day before buying something makes better your discretionary spending; such as spending on new clothes, shoes, household items, and more.

Many of us at one point or another have struggled with impulse buying, the trick is to take time to sleep on the idea of buying the new item, ask if it will translate into tangible use and value,  this will help to avoid unnecessary purchases adding up over time.

And this leads us to the next one…

6. Make a realistic budget

You need to create a budget and for that matter, a realistic budget, this will help you to keep track of what your actual spending is, you will also be able to tell if you have overspent your budget.

When making a budget, try to make your budget realistic, this will help you to avoid spending way more than you initially planned to spend.  This will help you to build a habit of keeping a budget and at the same time completely shift your lifestyle to being frugal.

Be realistic about how much money you’re actually going to spend on different categories.

7. Stick to your budget

Only buy the things you have budgeted and planned on buying. If you need to spontaneously want a thing, let it wait till the next 30-day budget to have it.

8. Keep a shopping list

Once you have a shopping list, it’s hard to buy extra stuff only if you’re able to stick to the list. People who stick to their shopping list end up spending less on groceries than others who don’t.

9. Invite friends over instead of clubbing

You can save up a whole lot by inviting your friends over to hang out with you at your place rather than spending excessively at a night club, bar, or joint where you’re more tempted to declare ‘unreal’ surplus.

You can have a better time socializing with your friends and create a much better connection with people when they come to your own house.

You can have a better conversation time and you’re also off the bustle and noise of the city.

10. Cancel unnecessary subscriptions

The next thing you should consider doing to save more money is to cancel subscriptions.

Maybe you’re subscribed to a magazine, gym, or any other stuff you can do without, then you will definitely be better off if you just cancel such subscriptions, especially when you know you’re not actually going to be using them that lots of times.

What’s the essence of paying for a family gym subscription when you only go to the gym once a month?

11. Get close to your kids

Spending more time with your kids can help you save some money. Some people buy their kids gift all the time in order to make up for not being close to them, they do that, so they don’t want them to feel otherwise.

But what about actually having more time to spend around them? Buying them stuff every now and then is wasting money, because most of the time, you end up buying even things they don’t need, even worse they don’t solve the closeness problem.

Instead, you can make a date or put an event on your calendar where you’re actually going to spend time with your kids even if that isn’t something that’s going to cost you a lot of money.

It could be as simple as playing a board game, or visiting or an art gallery or beach.

12. Pay off your debts

If you can prioritize paying off your debts, it will go a long way to help you save money for a few months or even a few years.

You can decide to live very frugally and not by very much so you can pay off your debts in the shortest possible time, that way you won’t be paying interest on those debts every single month.

That hat will also allow you to save money much more money quickly.

13. Drink more water

This may amaze you! But drinking more water is essential and basically cheaper or sometimes free, anything outside of this could pretty much cost you money and health.

Taking sugary beverages and drinks can add to Your waistline and cause overall deterioration in your health. Taking more water is good for your body, save you money as well as your health.

14. Avoid convenience food

Many Lagosians both families and singles mostly feed on convenience food or fast food.

They get this food from convenience stores and sometimes they come in easy prepackaged snacks that you buy at the grocery store.

But these types of food are usually very pricey and not good for your health.

15. Plan your meals

You can plan your meals around affordable staples food items such as beans, rice, yam, egg, and potatoes, this is not to say that you need to only eat beans, rice and potatoes all the time, that would be very boring over time, and also what’s the whole point about saving money if we’re not also enjoying life.

The thing is, if you can plan your meals around these staples, you’d be getting a significant number of your calories from these really affordable sources and that will in turn help you to save a lot of money.

16. Make use of a local library

Yes! A reader is a potential leader! But that doesn’t mean you have to buy every book on the shelf. I highly recommend that you read from state-funded libraries around you. If you’re someone like me that likes to constantly buy books, that’s a bill that can really add up and might not be necessary.

You can normally borrow a book from your local library, and even if they don’t have it you can make a request for it and they can either have it collected for you from another library or they might even buy it for you. This can be very useful for on-campus students.

17. Invest in Quality

Investing in quality is an interesting way to save money because it actually involves spending a little bit more money upfront. You’re more confident in wearing quality outfits than stuffing up your wardrobe with less durable ones. Quality wears last longer so you won’t have to keep buying new wears every single season because the old ones have worn out so soon.

18. Avoid Buying a Car

There is more you need to consider before getting a car than just the price of it, you need to factor into the cost of maintenance fueling and general maintenance and upkeep of the vehicle.  A car depreciates fast, You should only buy a car if it will add some value to your day to living, and even at that, buy a car that fits into your monthly income to avoid spending what’s supposed to be your savings in putting the car in good shape.

19. Quit Smoking, Alcohol, and Caffeine

There are different people with different cravings, if you need to save money, you want to quit some of your cravings, especially the addictive ones such as alcohol, smoking, caffeine, sweets. They do nothing than lower your faculties.

Though it’s not so simple to quit, you can, if you want to. According to SadhGuru and Indian author; the greatest chemical factory is the heart. Instead of seeing that smoking habit as bad for you, you can just see it as stupid.

Humans are made to be a non-smoking machine, so if you make a non-smoking machine smoke, that’s a stupid thing to do.

20. Be a better Negotiator

Being a better negotiator not just helps you to save money, it also helps you to save time and achieve a lot of mileage. Most people are not good at negotiation, but learning the art of taking a course on negotiation can help you to a lot day in day out if you diligently apply them.