I think we call all agree saving money is a must. First you must have a rainy day fund(ie extra expense pops up all the way to you lose your job~ 6 month of bills type of savings). Then retirement…Depending on your age retirement saving may seem like you have time or it maybe crunch time and you are feeling the pressure. For my family we aren’t expecting any type of social security payments in our retirement years. So we are figuring on retirement hopefully around 65. We want to have 75% of our current annual income at our disposal. I figured this on no kids, less daily travel, and our house being paid in full. So I used a great calculator to give me help on our figure…http://calcxml.com/calculators/retirement-calculator You can adjust the calculator in several different ways. Now that you are saving for retirement(hopefully pre-tax directly out of your paycheck) it is time for the rainy day fund. Hopefully you have been budgeting and have extra to save. If not then you need to make a true budget(see my blog https://stayhomeforkids.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/is-financial-freedom-your-goal/ for more info on what I consider a true budget).
You should have more than one savings account. One for extra expenses and another for 6 months of bills. The first should get to $1000 then leave it alone to build the second savings account. Depending on your pay and your expenses this may take a while. It is okay… we all start somewhere. The easiest way I have found to do this is to have your employer take $25 or $50 per pay period out of your check and put it directly into a savings account(if you can do more than that awesome, do so). If the money is directly taken out of your check then you don’t have the chance to spend it. No see the money, no spend the money… Once you have your 6 months of bills in the savings account you can go back and put more into your extra expense account(this account is the one I use for vacations, christmas, etc… yes I have it in my daily budget, but I put it in savings so that it accrues interest~ as little as that maybe right now). If you are saving for a big ticket item, ie a house or car then I suggest using the account with the 6 months of bills because this is the savings account that you do not touch. If it is in that account you won’t end of spending it on a new 90″ tv when in reality you could have bought a smaller tv and been just as happy. I call that account our out of sight out of mind account. If you do spend money out of that account never go below the 6 months of bills unless of course you are out of a job and are keeping a roof over your head:)
How are you saving money? What are your tips for successful saving?
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