How to save a million: tips for women

Women are great at saving money, saving for a rainy day and more. Therefore, it is not surprising that earning your first million will not be as difficult as it seems. Here are some tips on how to invest and not miscalculate.

We save wisely

It makes no sense to explain how to earn more or save 10% of each receipt to the account — everyone knows this and so, you can find many articles with advice on the Internet. It is better to try to invest with what you have managed to save. It’s a perfectly working strategy. But first, let’s figure out how to optimize the budget.

To do this, you will need two useful tools, and their name is mobile applications and cashback. They will help you cut costs, save even if not huge amounts, but even small steps are important in finance. For example, if every month you set aside 1000 rubles at 5% per annum, then in twenty years you will have 760 thousand rubles without much effort. Impressive?

So, applications. I advise you to install something from this list (or even all) on your smartphone:

• Eaten is a service from Yandex that helps you find products at a discount in nearby stores. It is convenient to keep a shopping list in it, and do not forget to scan receipts: for some goods you can get a cashback in rubles.
• Discount Online — promotions and discounts on products, building materials, electronics and household appliances, cosmetics, clothing, goods for children and much more.
• Couponator — service of coupons, discounts and promotional codes. Here you can find services and products with a discount of up to 90%. For example, decently save money on going to a restaurant with the whole family.
• TST Wallet — scan all your discount cards and show the barcode at the checkout. Now you will definitely not forget the right card at home and always get your discount.
• OZONE, «Take it!» and Goods — popular marketplaces. On them you can often find goods much cheaper than in a supermarket, and there are also promotions, discounts and cashbacks.

By the way, about cashback. If you still haven’t mastered it, I strongly advise you to change your card to one that gives you this opportunity. Cashback is a refund for purchases. That is, you simply pay in the store for what you already need, and then the bank returns a small percentage of the amount spent — simply for the fact that you use their card.

Here is my personal top cashback cards:

• Tinkoff Black — 1% for purchases, up to 30% for purchases from bank partners and another 4% on the card balance.
• «Benefit» from «Home Credit Bank» — up to 22% for purchases from partners and 1% for absolutely any purchases with a card.
• Yandex.Plus (available in Tinkoff or Alfa) — gives a big cashback on all Yandex services and 4% on the balance on the card.

Before settling on one card, study all the conditions. Each bank sometimes charges increased cashback for a number of categories — for example, in Tinkoff you can get back 10% of the order in Utkonos, and «Benefit» will give 8% of the purchase in OBI (relevant during the summer season).

Another point that you need to pay attention to is the cost of servicing the card. Ideally, if you pick up a card with a low cost and a large number of cashback categories that you use regularly. Do not limit yourself to the list that I gave above — study the offers of all major banks.

What to do next

It is more expedient to immediately save all the money saved and received with the help of cashback. For example, the usual set of household chemicals in an online store cost you 400 rubles cheaper than you usually spent in a supermarket — this amount should be immediately set aside.

Do not think that this is only a couple of hundred and it will not bring a tangible effect. This is mistake. For a month, from such seemingly insignificant savings, a decent amount accumulates, which can be invested in a worthy future for you and your children.

Here are a few options for how you can save money:

• open a separate account or deposit to which you will transfer even small amounts;
• transfer to a card with interest on the balance — the main thing here is not to confuse it with other money (for this you will have to keep records in a tablet, for example, in Excel);
• physically save money in a special envelope — if you saved cash.

Perhaps the best way is to open a separate account, to which you will transfer all the saved amounts and deposit cash through an ATM. So there is a higher chance that you will not accidentally spend this money.

Let’s start investing

I must say right away that I do not recommend starting investments with amounts less than 50 rubles, otherwise you will lose money on commissions to brokers and taxes. Therefore, you first need to save up — on the same separate account that you have already, I hope, opened.

The investment itself depends on your goal. What do you want to save money for? The goal should be clear, material and measurable — in money and in time. “For the education of a child” is not a goal, but a dream, it will be difficult to save up for it. But «One million rubles for the daughter’s 18th birthday» is what you need.

How to accumulate this million? Here are 9 rules to help you.

1. Get started now. Timing matters: the sooner you start investing, the less you need per month. If you started when the child is 5 years old, then with a yield of 15% by his 16 years old, you need to save 3 rubles a month. If the start was at the age of 000 years, the amount already increases to 7 rubles per month. One and a half times more!⠀
2. Calculate the exact cost of the target. What are you saving for? Education, car, apartment? A clearer amount is needed in order to more accurately imagine where you are going — psychologists say that well-formulated goals are more often achieved.
3. Consider inflation. Money depreciates by about 5% every year. Therefore, when calculating the amount, use the historical inflation rate to estimate how much it will cost you to achieve the goal in 5, 10, or 15 years. You can just put aside a little more every year: this year 3 rubles, the next — already 000.
4. Choose a reliable broker. A broker is your intermediary in the financial market, a company with which you can buy stocks, bonds and other instruments. Most major Russian banks have investment units, such as Sberbank, VTB and Tinkoff.
5. Read the terms. Carefully study the size of commissions, and also read about taxation — you need to pay for investment income (the tax is withheld by the broker). So that there are no surprises: you counted on one amount, but after paying commissions and taxes, you received another.
6. Diversify your portfolio. You should not invest all your money in one thing — only gold or only bonds. Use stocks, bonds, and precious metals — and perhaps even real estate. Also, make sure that the shares in your portfolio are not only Russian — you need to diversify by country as well. This is how you reduce your risks. Even in a crisis, all the assets of a balanced portfolio will not fall in price, one thing will always grow. So, on average, you will get a plus.
7. Don’t buy individual securities. We are talking about the long term — five, ten, maybe even fifteen years. And in this case, a passive investment strategy shows itself effectively, in which instead of individual shares you buy ETFs or mutual funds. They contain a balanced set of stocks and are almost guaranteed to grow over the long term.
8. Change your share of shares. Depending on how much time is left before the goal, change the share of shares (in our case, funds). The more up to date, the more shares can be included in the portfolio.
9. Don’t be afraid of the crisis. For an investor, this is a time of opportunity — many stocks are falling in price, and often unreasonably, which means that they will grow over time. Therefore, the crisis for us is like a season of sales: you can buy for a pittance something that previously seemed too expensive.