by Elton Gahr

Created on: April 28, 2009   Last Updated: April 29, 2009

Everyone knows that they should be saving. They understand that emergencies come up, and even if they don't there are children who want to go to college and they want to retire. Yet actually saving is something that many don't do. Instead they fret over the bills each month trying to come up with a way to pay them all with their paychecks. It is possible that they are in a true economic bind, and saving is currently impossible. It is more likely however, that they simply need to reorganize and follow a few simple rules that will help them make saving easier.

Eliminate debt. One of the best investments in the world is the cancellation of debt. Get rid of the credit cards, drive a car that you don't have to make payments on, don't borrow to remodel your home but instead wait until you have the money. The key to understanding the problem with debt is to understand that credit is buying money at a loss. The less debt you have the easier it will be to put money away.

Start with small amounts. It is often easy to assume that ten dollars a month won't matter so instead we save nothing. If all you have is ten dollars put it in an account. If you save just ten dollars a month for 30 years at 6.5 percent interest at the end of that time you will have 11,068 dollars and once you have began to see your savings grow it will be far easier to find the incentive to go without things.

Make a budget. We all know we should have one, but most of us don't. We come up with excuses like lack of time or unsteady incomes. None of these make sense though. An unsteady income only means that you have to budget more carefully and your lack of budget is likely one of the reasons you are so busy. Looking over your income and outgoings you may find ways to adjust your cost of living. Even a few dollars a months savings can be a good start towards building that nest egg.

Reward yourself. Rather than limiting yourself by saving reward yourself. Make a deal that for every 1000 dollars you put into your savings account you'll spend a hundred. This can also be effective with increasing earning. Rather than simply putting it all into savings spend half of the money you make in overtime on yourself and put the rest into savings. This will give you a short term reason to do the extra work as well as a long term reason.

No matter how much you want to save or what you want to save it for, the most important step is to begin immediately. Time is as important a factor in your savings as the money you put in. With the miracle of compound interest time has become as important as money in the savings equation. So the easiest thing you can do to begin saving is to begin small.

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