Savings? "Who can afford to save these days?", you may ask. As I found out, the answer is "Everyone". I didn't have to save much each payday and I discovered I had the money when my washer finally died. For once, I didn't have to buy on time, pay interest, or worry that my washer would be hauled off because I lost my job before completing the payments. It was heaven!

I started out by putting $20 a paycheck in a savings account. I figured that I spent $20 every two weeks without even thinking about it on little stuff I couldn't even remember after a couple of days. That sounds like a joke amount, but after a year (26 paychecks), I had $580 plus almost $30 in interest. Not bad. It hadn't cost me anything and I made a little money. The best part was that I didn't even miss the $20 each check.

I started out setting up a direct deposit from my paycheck to my savings account, so I wouldn't forget to put it in, or rationalize not putting it in (which was even more likely!). After a few years and a job change, I quit using the automatic deposit and did it myself. I'd had a few unexpected, expected expenses, like my cat getting sick and my dishwasher needing repairs, and when I could just write a check from my savings account to pay the bills, I was hooked on this strange phenomena called "savings".

Speaking of job changes, I also realized that any raise in pay I got was money that I hadn't counted on having anyway, so I would split the raise between me and my savings account. That way, I didn't feel deprived, but my savings per paycheck quickly went from $20 to $30 to $40, etc. Pretty soon, I always had money to cover the emergencies (broken pipes or repairing that furnace during the dead of winter, etc.), and I was making money on that money, instead of paying interest to someone else on money I had to borrow.

To tell you the truth, I also used the same system to pay down the principal on my house (starting at $20 extra each month and building from there), and I was able to pay off my house 11 years early on a 30-year loan. It works for lots of things. Try it, you'll like it!

Here's a little tip, too. I let the government take all I could out of my paycheck (I set my number of deductions to 0 on my W-4 even though I claim 2 at the end of the year), because every year I'd get at least $800 to $1,000 back, instead of scrambling to pay taxes at the end of the year. It was kind of like my own personal yearly bonus. I know it's letting them use my money, but it ended the heart-stopping April 15th scramble to pay the IRS.

Savings are one of those things that makes everyday life just a little easier, and I'm all for that.

Learn more about this author, Mary Kay Reed.
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