If you're trying to live on $1,000 a month, needs should likely take priority over wants. One good budget plan can be the 50/30/20 rule, which allocates 50% of one's take-home pay to needs, 30% to wants, and 20% to savings.
Make a plan
If you want to save your $1,000 in 3 months, you'd need to be saving $11 a day or about $83 a week. If you wanted to reach your savings goal in 6 months, you could pull it off by saving about $5.50 a day or $42 a week.
If you can afford to put away $1,400 per month, you could potentially save your first $100k in just 5 years. If that's too much, aim for even half that (or whatever you can). Thanks to compound interest, just $700 per month could become $100k in 9 years.
With the 30 day savings rule, you defer all non-essential purchases and impulse buys for 30 days. Instead of spending your money on something you might not need, you're going to take 30 days to think about it. At the end of this 30 day period, if you still want to make that purchase, feel free to go for it.
Bottom Line. Living on $1,000 per month is a challenge. From the high costs of housing, transportation and food, plus trying to keep your bills to a minimum, it would be difficult for anyone living alone to make this work. But with some creativity, roommates and strategy, you might be able to pull it off.
Saving 20 dollars a day adds up to about $600 a month or $7,300 each year!
Make daily goals
In order to save $500 in 30 days, you would roughly need to save $17 per day, and this can be a combination of cutting back on spending and making extra money.
To achieve the $1,500 goal, save according to today instead of a week. That means $1 for day 1, $2 for day 2, and so on. If you do this for 90 days, you can expect to have saved up to $4,186. An amount more significant than your original target.
A single person can live in Vietnam for as low as $800 a month, according to Numbeo. The cost of living, on average, is 47% lower than in the United States and rent is 66% lower. Rent in Ho Chi Minh City will cost you a little more but rent in the beautiful beach city Nha Trang is only $349.
The 50/30/20 rule is a budgeting technique that involves dividing your money into three primary categories based on your after-tax income (i.e., your take-home pay): 50% to needs, 30% to wants and 20% to savings and debt payments.
Assuming you will need $40,000 per year to cover your basic living expenses, your $1 million would last for 25 years if there was no inflation. However, if inflation averaged 3% per year, your $1 million would only last for 20 years.
Depending on your strategy, saving $1 a day can add up to $18,000 — or $23,600. A dollar doesn't go as far as it used to — or does it? It's true that you can't get much for $1 these days. But if you set aside $1 each day, you actually can get a lot of bang for your buck.
Our findings. We determined that if an investor achieves a 3% annual return on his or her assets, he or she would need to invest $710 each month for ten years to reach $100,000 with a $1,000 beginning amount. By the year 2031, the investment would be worth a total of $100,566.
Imagine saving $5,000 in only 100 days. It's called a challenge, but the process is quite simple. You get 100 empty envelopes and write the numbers 1 to 100 on them. Then each day, for 100 days, randomly choose an envelope.
On day one, put $1 in envelope 1. On day 2, put $2 in envelope 2. Continue this way until day 100, when your final savings deposit of $100 will bring you to a grand total of $5,050. Cue the exuberant videos with piles of money.
Weekly savings to get to $5000 in 3 months
You'll have to put about $417 toward savings each week to reach your $5,000 goal. Weekly savings goals are the smallest but also the shortest timeline. They can be a good reminder to keep yourself on track. However, it can be disheartening if you miss your weekly goal.