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  • Teresa Campos says:

    Great article and great tips to help people save. The tip of continuing to make a payment after the debt was paid off was a new one. It does make sense to pretend you still have the payment and just set that money aside in a savings account. Otherwise, it could be easy to use that money on something else.

  • Arminiusaurelius says:

    I remember when I was a young man, I had a large glass jar about 2 1/2 or 3 foot high with a small opening on the top [ like a large wins bottle ] and every day I would throw in all my spare loose change. By the time it was full , I had Mega $$$. No, I did NOT spend it, I put it into a separate savings account. As I said in the past, I often also worked another side job, 4 hours a day for 5 days a week in order to accumulate more MONEY. If not 5 days, why not 2 or 3 days a week? There are numerous opportunities in life where IF you have money, you can take advantage of it and buy Dirt Cheap. Stock market crash, I buy when others are selling. Life is GOOD!!

    • David @ MoneyNing.com says:

      Moonlighting is awesome if you can find a way to make money in addition to your full time job. And good for you to buy stocks when others are selling. I bet you made a ton of money lately!

      • Arminiusaurelius says:

        No, I am still waiting for the Major Crash which is on the horizon. The problem is that the Fed dropped the interest rates to 0 and they are creating TRILLIONS of dollars out of thin air to bail out Wall Street and the Banksters and to prop up the market. So that stopped the crash / temporarily. I expect the market [ Dow ] to drop down to about 15,000 or less. This CRASH will be worse than the Crash of 2000 and 2008.

        • David @ MoneyNing.com says:

          I hope you make lots of money but at the same time, I hope there won’t be a huge crash!

  • Papa Foxtrot says:

    I classify unexpected money as #6. One other tip I try is to pay for my home, utilities, and insurance using only one of my semi-weekly paychecks so one of my checks are almost pure savings. I know many people do not have their lives set up so their rent or mortgage costs less than 50%, much less with utilities and insurance. However, if you start your month paying off as much as possible, you will save more off your second check.

    • David @ MoneyNing.com says:

      You are golden with a 50% savings rate. Remember to add automation to your savings plan and you will be all set when it’s retirement time. Good job!

  • Arminiusaurelius says:

    Back in 1950, I enlisted in the Navy for 4 years. We earned about $ 120.00 a month. Of course, they provided all the meals, housing, and medical. I had them automatically deduct $18.75 a month for a 10 year [ $25.00 ] savings bond. At the end of 4 years, it cost me $ 900.00. After 10 years I received $1200.00. To find out what rate of inflation we had between 1951 and 2020, go to USInflationcalculator.com and put in $18.75, the year 1951 and the year 2020 and you will see that we had 886 % inflation….. that $ 18.75 would now be $184.90 a month.

    $ 185.00 a month X12 months = $2220.00 a year. Multiply that $2220.00 X a 45-year work life you would have saved $99,900.00. With “cautious ” investing, it could easily be worth $700,000.00+. By the way, $185.00 savings a month is chump change. You should save at least 10%+ in order to live comfortably in the last 20 + years of your life.

    Arminius Aurelius

    • David @ MoneyNing.com says:

      Thanks for chiming in Arminius. Your stories are always motivating, and it’s good to hear from someone who’ve actually lived long enough to benefit from compound interest.

      Save early and often people. It works!

  • Steven Pearson says:

    Another great article. I especially liked # 6 in regards to a car loan. If you keep paying yourself the same amount of what you were paying on the loan, by the time you need a new car you’ll already have the money. Then you can choose whether it’s better to pay for it outright or finance it in case they are offering 0% financing. In that case your money will continue to work for you and not them. This is all part of my be your own banker philosophy

    • David @ MoneyNing.com says:

      I like that one too Steven. Another reason having cash to buy a car outright even if car dealerships are advertising 0% financing is that not everyone is going to qualify for the 0% rate. The way the car buying process works is that the financing department is the last step in the process, which means that by the time you know what rate you qualify for, you already invested at least a couple hours into thinking that the new car you test drove is yours.

      By having cash, you won’t get into a situation where they tell you the rate you qualify for is really 5% instead of 0% a few hours in, making that car you wanted unaffordable because you can always switch to buying the car without financing.

  • Michelle says:

    I don’t like the tip about checking the account balances periodically because it goes against the benefit of automated savings.

    I agree with the other poster – set it and forget it!

    • David @ MoneyNing.com says:

      It’s a balance, Michelle. Check too much and you’ll feel compelled to take money out. Check too little and you’ll never get to see the fruits of your labor.

      If you have to choose though, I agree that you have to err on the side of not checking. At least that way you are still saving lots!

  • Save save save says:

    Automation is the real deal. Set it and forget it and by the time you check your accounts, you’ll be rich!

  • David Jacobs says:

    Nice article, this definitely a positive influence for me to continue to save.

  • Andy @ Retire at 40 says:

    I too have thought about this. We must be inherently something, whether it’s a spender or a saver but the good news is, people can change. I used to be a spender (not a big one, but a spender nonetheless) but I’d say I was a saver now, just a few months after deciding to change.

  • SimplyForties says:

    Coming up with a non-financial reward would really be great. I’m nearly debt-free and having a hard time not deciding to reward myself with one of the several things on my “want” list. I haven’t figured out what that non-financial reward would be, but I’m working on it.

  • Craig says:

    My savings began when I didn’t have money to buy something I wanted, and then began to save up for it. this was when I was younger and still use the same philosophy for the majority of my purchases. I agree that having a positive influence is key, also setting goals is a great reminder to help stay motivated and to mentally know there is a reward at the end of the tunnel.

  • Neal Frankle says:

    Nice post sir.

    I have found that if I focus on the end goal – financial, diet, whatever, I can get frustrated very easily. Instead, I try to act in a way that will get me closer to my goal – in daily increments. In other words, if I have a spending problem, I’ll make a plan, just for today, not to waste any money going out to lunch (for example) and if I achieve that, one day at a time, I can feel like I had a successful day. If instead I think about some harder to achieve goal – like having a net worth of $5 million in 3 years, I may give up and not do what I need to do on a daily basis.

  • Jules @ The Francophile Files says:

    Seeing both my emergency fund and general savings account grow (hehe, by even small increments) is definitely a positive influence for me to continue to save.

    Good explanation of this phenomenon.

  • Elizabeth says:

    This is exactly why each of my children started receiving a (very small) allowance starting on their 7th birthdays, why we went to the bank that same week and opened a custodial timed-saving account complete with pass book, why they were taught to enter each monthly deposit of their allowance, and why, for the first year of receiving an allowance they were not allowed to make any purchases. The whole point was to help them develop, at the very least, a habit of saving money though my hope was that they would develop a strong taste for watching their money grow. It was my theory that they would, in the natural course of events, learn to spend money but it was my job as their parent to teach them the whys and hows of saving.

  • MyMoneyMyLife says:

    Great article, we recently started having our flexible spending money direct deposited into our savings. We had already spent the money so why not just save it and earn interest instead of pumping it back into the checking account.

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