The Money Helper

The difficult thing about saving money is that from the moment you get that paycheck, there are many demands for that cash. You need to pay yourself first. Once the paycheck hits your checking account, the many demands of your life will quickly gobble up all your available funds. To see how you can “pay yourself first” and start saving, establish a monthly budget and stick to it.

Its tough at first, but it does get easier and it becomes rewarding as you see your debt load shrink and your saving grow. You need to prioritize and determine what is really a need versus what you just want to have. A great way to think about budgeting, is to look at everything that wasn’t around when your parents were your age as a “nice to have item”. For example, our parents didn’t have cell phones or high definition digital cable. What’s more, these are often expensive items and you pay them every month.

Look at it this way, going for the high definition digital cable probably costs you $75 a month more than basic cable. That works out to $900 a year. How about switching to a less expensive cell phone plan - probably another $250 a year. Eat out for lunch every day? At $10-$12 a pop, that can add up to $1,200 a year more than it would cost you to bring your lunch to work.

You can find a number of already created budget spreadsheets on the templates page on Microsoft.com that you can use to help see where you can save some money. Don’t let the size overwhelm you, just start filling in what you know and start tracking what you don’t. See where you can do with a little less and watch your money grow.