So, its been almost a year to the day since I got engaged. July 16 will be one year. Although I know several people who got engaged after me who will be tying the knot before me, I am happy I am waiting. I have had a couple of people on my blog who came because they googled "wedding on pennies". I hate to disappoint, so I want to give some hard tips on how to save money with all this wedding planning stuff. So here it goes, my top ten penny saving tips in 5 days. For the next 5 days I will put two saving tips on my blog. Enjoy
1. Give yourself plenty of time: I know it can seem like ages away to do a two year engagement, but it gives you time to look for sales, make mistakes and save money. My other tip would be, if you know you want to get married, start saving years before. Stick the money in an account that earns interest and gives a penalty if you withdraw too many times. It will encourage you to keep more money in there and also deter you from dipping into your funds. If you start saving $20/month for five years you will have $1200. That may not sound like a lot, but that is a good head start and its really painless. You spend more than $20 a month eating out. But like I said, if you haven't done that, don't despair. I should have, but I didn't. Save your refund checks, ask family to give you their change (wedding on pennies) and limit your expenses for the next two years. Two years is plenty of time to save up for a nice wedding. If you can wait, spring for two and a half or three years. But that may be a bit much.
2. Start a budget EARLY: One of the best things I learned at my job was making Excel spreadsheets (right Brandy). So when I got engaged, I was really motivated to use my new knowledge to make a spreadsheet for my budget. But, this is the best tip ever. I picked a number that I wanted my whole wedding to be. I started with my knot.com budget maker to get the basic expenses and went from there. Making a budget will help you know what you can and cant afford in each line item. Be realistic here though. You can't budget $10/person for a reception unless you plan on passing out PB&J at your house. Figure out what you really want and go from there. One of my bridesmaids said that I should figure out what I want to really splurge on and design my budget around that. She wanted a really nice cake for her reception, so in order to afford that, she had to save on other things. It also really helped me negotiate payments for one of my vendors. My photographer is a friend who is gifting me her services, but she has to bring one other person so I can get all the shots I want. So, because I had a budget for photography, I could tell her exactly what I could afford to reimburse them for travel, hotel and a monetary gift for their help.
Ok, as you can see I am really passionate about this and I can go on and on about how to save money. I have been a saver since I got an allowance way back. Come back tomorrow for two more tips. To all my bridal friends, supporters, or just those who found me on google, good luck. The first two tips can really be used for anything. Save those pennies everyone. Enjoy.
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