by Elton Gahr

Created on: March 30, 2009

A lack of savings is a major cause of stress for many of us and while we know that we need to save money actually doing it is sometimes difficult. The problem I have found is that when i have less money to save I become more stressed and when I am more stressed I have less energy leading me to eat out more, and spend more money on entertainment in order to relieve that stress.

This circle of spending money to calm yourself and then becoming stressed because you don't have money is a microcosm of the same issue that happens on a larger scale with our paychecks but it can get worse with things like payday loans, bills, and credit cards, and so many other things that begin to build up as you wait for your paycheck which then immediately disappears because you already spent the money.

What is the answer then to cutting our costs so that we can begin to break this paycheck to paycheck cycle that has us trapped an begin to catch up? The answer in many cases is to stop thinking big and start thinking small. You may not be able to make a hundred dollars a week extra or stop any of your major bills easily, but if you can save a few dollars in a few places it can make things a lot easier.

Before you do anything you need to understand how much money you have and how much money you are spending. Don't count on your memory for this. From the moment you get your next paycheck write down everything from the quarters you use to buy soda to the house and car payments. You need to know exactly where your money is if you're going to fix it. At the same time, try to spend this week not worrying so much about your finance. These may seem contradictory but the truth is that worry is a pointless emotion that you are replacing with a real action.

The next step is to look carefully at your bank statement. There are a few things there that are useful to look for. Do you pay a per check fee? Do you pay for owning a debit card? Are there any monthly charges that you don't really need? Changing your account so you don't pay a quarter every time you write a check isn't all that difficult but if you write a few checks a month it will begin to add up. The same goes with canceling a monthly expense that you don't need. It is often easy to skim this and miss things that you thought were cancelled or don't need anymore.

Next begin to examine ways to buy things more efficiently. This doesn't mean buying them cheaper in fact it is often the opposite. If you have replaced anything more than twice in

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