How to start saving for the future

I read an interesting post over at Get Rich Slowly and it inspired me to write this article. It lightly touched on the idea of how you can start saving so I decided to explore the topic in more detail. This is a step anyone can take no matter how high your expenses are or how much debt you have. This is also how I got started!

Start of by saving 1% of your income. This can be via an employer 401(k) program or a savings account done via direct deposit. You could also set up automatic transfer at your bank so each time you get paid 1% of your income gets moved. This is only 1 cent on every dollar you earn so chances are you won't even notice it.

Over time you will see your balance increase. If you are like me then you will be motivated to try to save more. This can be done a variety of ways. You can put gifts, rebate checks, side work pay, and others into your savings. Pretend like you never had the money. You can then increase from 1% of your pay to 2% or 5%. Your savings will begin to snowball.

As you pay down your debts and have all of this "extra money" each month make the move to taking the same monthly payment amount in spread it among your savings. 401(k)s, Roth IRA, emergency savings, and other goals. You will soon turn from being the person "who could never save a dime" to "wow look at all the money I have put away!" No one saves a ton of money at once. It is built over time. Along with savings comes freedom. Freedom is priceless!