Get a handle on your finances
Günther Mårder, CEO of the organization Företagarna and economist at heart, has long made frugality and economic thinking his own lifestyle. He is rich, but makes sure to turn over every penny so as not to squander money unnecessarily. Some call him stingy, but he opposes that.
— I would say that I am very economical.
He thinks that one of the most important things to do with your finances is to get a handle on it.
Günther Mårder thinks he is economical, not stingy.
— Take a half-day vacation, preferably with a friend, and work together on your personal finances. Make it a working day at home, and help each other. Go through everything – interest rates, subscriptions, contracts. It will be the most profitable working day ever, says Günther Mårder.
Jan Bertoft, general secretary for Sweden’s consumers, also thinks it is important to get a handle on where the money goes.
— Make a “Luxury Trap” for your own finances. And there are also various apps that you can use to see where the money goes, he says.
Talk to others
Jan Bolmeson runs the forum Rich together, as well as the podcast of the same name. His first advice is to talk to others about finances, and ask for help with things that seem difficult. We can do that with other things, but for some reason not with our money.
But the difficult thing is to come up with and ask yourself the right questions, he says.
Jan Bolmeson points to some that he thinks are fundamental.
— How can I increase my income, how can I lower my costs and which resources can I optimize? Who and where can I ask for help?
Buffer is to buy time
Jan Bolmeson thinks that things like tying interest rates, electricity contracts and having a buffer really only mean that you buy security in the form of time. When the contracts expire, you are as much a prey to the circumstances as anyone else.
— It’s a strategy based on hope, if you don’t commit long enough.
But it’s not just bad. The advantage of buying time is that you can solve the short-term problem in a long-term way, Jan Bolmeson thinks.
You need to try to arrange it so that you can manage in the long term, without having to draw from the buffer, he thinks.
— Then it’s about increasing income and reducing costs.
He believes that interest rates and electricity prices can be high for a long time to come.
— If you are going to bind your electricity contract, you need to bind for a long time, maybe five, ten years. Our experience is that many people who bind, for example, interest or electricity prices, do so in far too short periods of time.
Åsa Axelsson, savings pro in everyday life.
Gain knowledge
Åsa Axelsson has turned frugality into an art after being on sick leave a few years ago. Now she invests in living as cheaply as possible, and has written a book on the subject: “I leave the squirrel wheel”.
For her, a lot is about acquiring knowledge of various kinds to be able to skip unnecessary consumption. Like being able to fix things at home instead of buying new ones, and mending clothes.
— That was despised by my generation, “sit there and stuff socks”. But it saves money, she says.
Skip unnecessary gifts
Gifts of various kinds can cost a lot. Both Åsa Axelsson and Günther Mårder have stopped buying unnecessary gifts.
Åsa Axelsson makes a lot herself, like freshly baked bread as a going away present.
Günther Mårder has reasoned that it is usually more fun to give gifts than to receive them.
— If the person appreciates the gift as much as it costs, it can be assumed that he or she had already bought it. The difference in perceived value and price becomes a deadweight loss, he says.
For children, he likes to buy used stuff, but otherwise he thinks it’s better to invest in doing fun things together instead of giving things away.
Åsa Axelsson cycles everywhere.
Leave the car standing
Åsa Axelsson tells us that she has become a cyclist. She leaves the car standing and gets around in Umeå, where she lives, on two wheels. Even when she is shopping and brings large bags of food with her.
Günther Mårder, who lives two miles from Stockholm where he works, also cycles occasionally. But he has purchased an electric bicycle. It makes commuting to work less difficult, he thinks.
— Driving is a habit, it’s comfortable. But if you made a calculation for driving two years ago, it must look different now, he says, but admits that he also drives sometimes.
Exchange stuff with each other
Jan Bertoft thinks we should share more of the stuff. Borrow from each other instead of buying new, and if you have to own, there may be used stuff.
Günther Mårder is on the same line. Percussion drills and hedge shears, which are only used for a few hours very rarely, can be shared, he thinks.
Stay big and nice
Günther Mårder believes that many of us live unnecessarily large.
“We overconsume housing in Sweden,” he says, and talks about how web developers work in the digital world.
— They look at how people move on websites. The same thing can be done at home. Then you can see which surfaces are actually used most intensively, not infrequently it is the kitchen.
Maybe it is possible to reduce the surfaces, he thinks.
— Many surfaces are probably not even stepped on during a normal week.
17 degrees
Günther Mårder maintains strict temperature discipline at home and heats the house during the night and then lets the temperature drop during the day when the electricity price is high. 17 to 18 degrees it can bottom out, he says.
It saves money, every degree you lower is said to reduce the heating cost by 5 percent, according to, among others, Vattenfall’s energy expert.
But many people think 17 degrees is very cold.
— It’s a habit. It’s hard at first, he says, and explains that you get cold fingers and a cold tip of your nose.
— But it’s also good, because then you get up and move. That’s what we should do regularly. You get higher fat burning as well.
The hot water
At Günther Mårder’s home, the water heater is also switched off during the day.
“Turning it off is the first thing I do in the morning,” he says.
The family showers in the morning, but the water has been heated during the night as electricity is cheaper. Günther Mårder makes sure to turn on the water heater again late in the evening when the electricity price is lower during the night.
Reduced consumption results in cheaper electricity
When it comes to electricity, his “super savings tip” is that we should help each other to save. In this way, the electricity price drops overall, which benefits us all.
“According to Energiforsk’s studies, the price drops by half if we in Europe reduce consumption by 10 percent – talk about double savings,” he says.
He also thinks that everyone should have hourly rate agreements to drive change in behavior and reduce consumption during the times when demand is highest.
Keep saving
The animal times have made us realize how quickly things can change. Many have left the stock market in panic when it started to go down. It is unfortunate, thinks Jan Bolmeson.
— Now is actually a better time to start saving than a year ago. But I think you should do it continuously.
It won’t be like this forever, he consoles. And the stock market will go up. Anyone who buys stocks cheaply now will profit from it when things turn around.
“We will get out of this too,” says Jan Bolmeson.