Deposit a portion of your income in a savings or retirement account. Don't accumulate new debt, and pay off any debt you currently have. Establish a realistic timeframe for your savings goals. Create a budget and keep track of all your expenses. Invest in the stock market only if you understand the ins and outs of the gambles you make. Spend money only on the essentials, and look for cheaper options where available, from housing to food, transportation, or energy usage. Save for an emergency fund. Spend money on luxuries only occasionally.
1.Pay yourself first. The easiest way to save money rather than spending it is to make sure that that you never get a chance to spend the money in the first place. Arranging for a portion of each paycheck to be deposited directly into a savings account or a retirement account takes the stress and tedium out of the process of deciding how much money to save and how much to keep for yourself each month — basically, you save automatically and the money you keep each month is yours to spend as you please. Over time, depositing even a small portion of each paycheck into your savings can add up (especially when you take interest into account) so start as soon as you can for maximum benefit.
To set up an automatic deposit, talk to the payroll staff at your job (or, if your employer uses one, your third-party payroll service). If you can provide account information for a savings account separate from your basic checking account, you should generally be able to set up a direct deposit scheme with no problems.
If for some reason you can't set up an automatic deposit for each paycheck (like if you support yourself with freelance work or are paid mostly in cash), decide on a specific cash amount to manually deposit into a savings account each month and stick to this goal.
2.Avoid accumulating new debt. Some debt is essentially unavoidable. For instance, only the very rich have enough money to buy a house in one lump sum payment, yet millions of people are able to buy houses by taking out loans and slowly paying them back. However, in general, when you can avoid going into debt, do so. Paying a sum of money up-front is always cheaper in the long run than paying off an equivalent loan while interest accumulates over time.
If taking out a loan is unavoidable, try to make as big of down payment as possible. The more of the cost of the purchase you can cover up front, the quicker you'll pay off your loan and the less you'll spend on interest.
While everyone's financial situation differs, most banks recommend that your debt payments should be about 10% of your pretax income, while anything under 20% is considered healthy. About 36% is seen as an "upper limit" for reasonable amounts of debt.
3.Set reasonable savings goals. It's a lot easier to save if you know you have something to save for. Set yourself savings goals that are within your reach to motivate yourself to make the tough financial decisions needed to save responsibly. For serious goals like buying a house or retiring, your goals may take years or decades to achieve. In these cases, it's important to monitor your progress on a regular basis. Only by stepping back and taking a look at the big picture can you get a sense for how far you've come and how far you have left to go.
Big goals, like retirement, take a very long time to achieve. In the time needed to reach these goals, financial markets are likely to be different than they are today. You may need to spend some time researching the predicted future state of the market before setting your goal. For instance, if you're in your prime earning years, most financial commentators say that you'll need about 60-85% of your currently yearly income to maintain your current lifestyle each year you're retired.
