Most Americans, especially the millennials, live from paycheck to paycheck nowadays. The millennials struggle in paying off their student debts, bills, and expenses first – leaving them with no money to spare for savings. It also causes them to delay building their retirement funds thinking they will remain healthy and strong for the next decade or two.

While this may be true, the financial experts say it’s better to build your savings and retirement funds as early as you can. Not only will you be able to prepare for the future, but you’ll also have extra cash to spare in times of emergency. How can you build a savings account? The financial experts share these saving strategies for the millennials.

Create a Budget Plan

The financial experts recommend you download a YNAB app (also known as You Need a Budget) to monitor your cash flow. You can list down all your bills and utilities like electricity, rent, water, food, transportation, as well as your debts like student loans, mortgage, etc.

Having a strict budget plan helps you keep on track of your financial goals.

Then, you can put a budget estimate to see the actual money you’ll be spending on each item. YNAB helps you identify your financial goals as well as the things that matter to you so that you can focus on paying it first before buying what you want.

Monitor Your Spending Habits

Most millennials might already have an idea of how much money they expect every payday, but most of them don’t know how to spend it well. According to financial experts, one of the main culprits, why you’re always tight in a budget, is because you don’t track your spending habits. For example, you might spend $2 ordering your favorite Starbucks coffee.

Most millennials fail to save because they don’t track their “little or trivial” expenses efficiently, thinking it wouldn’t hurt their budget.

While $2 may not hurt your budget, but paying $2 to buy your favorite beverage every morning can certainly drain your budget. You’ll end up wasting $10 every week or around $50 in a month without realizing it! To prevent mindless spending, the experts recommend you download apps like Quicken to track your expenses. It lets you take a photo of every receipt you have whenever you make a purchase.

Then, the app will categorize your expenses, enlist the date of purchase and deduct the amount from your balance. It lets you track how much money you’re cashing out on these unnecessary expenses. Based on the data, you can modify your budget plan to cut down your costs and divert the extra money to your savings account.

Pay Off Your Debts

According to experts, debt cripples millennials from achieving financial freedom. ValuePenguin‘s latest study reveals an astounding 44 million millennials struggle with paying off their student loans. With their debts amounting to $33,000 (or more), most millennials are forced to delay in achieving their life goals like buying a mortgage or starting a family.

Monitoring your loans will help you prioritize which you should pay first to eliminate all your debts faster.

To help you manage your debt, the financial experts recommend downloading Debt Payout Planner to give you a bird’s eye view of your loans. It can help calculate how much money you owe. It also computes the interests you need to pay every month as well as the estimated time frame to pay off your debts.

Aside from that, the experts recommend transferring your debt to a credit card offering a 0% APR to eliminate the burden of paying interest. In this way, you only have to pay for the principal amount you borrow – allowing you to pay your loans faster without paying for the interest.

Start Investing

Now that you have some money left to save, the financial experts recommend you start investing as soon as possible. Investing allows your money to grow to its maximum potential that will serve as your passive income. You can download the Robinhood app to familiarize yourself with the basics of trading in the stock market.