Military Saves Week runs from April 15-19, 2024.
Military Saves Week is a campaign to motivate families to reduce debt, save money and take control of their financial lives, and while it may run in April of this year, that doesn't mean you can't get a start on your savings.
Maybe you can use Military Saves Week to make a positive change in your financial life. So what sort of things can you do to start saving now?
- Start contributing to a Thrift Savings Plan account (TSP) or increase your current contribution.
- Call a creditor and ask them to lower your interest rate. Keep paying the same amount to pay off your debt faster.
- Use your tax refund to pay off debt or build an emergency fund.
- Call your cable, telephone and cellphone companies and ask for a less expensive plan.
- Start an allotment or automatic transfer to a savings account that is hard to access. Not impossible, just hard.
- Keep track of your spending for one week. Better yet, one month. Look over your spending at the end of the month and evaluate how you feel about your purchases.
- Sell some excess stuff on Craigslist or eBay, then put that money toward debt or an emergency fund.
- Open an IRA or increase your contributions to your current IRA.
- Inventory the food in your house, and make a menu using as much of that food as possible.
- Sit down and consider your long-term goals, then think about how you are going to manage your finances to make them happen.
There are probably a hundred other things that you could do to make financial progress during Military Saves Week. I hope you will use this list to spur your own imagination. As my husband always says, "No time like the present!"
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