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Saving the Right Way
Date Added: July, 1999

By Chris Stallman  |  E-mail

   It's a known fact that if you can't save money, than it will be very difficult for you to invest any. So the first step in investing is to learn how to save money. Saving is a skill that a person carries throughout their lifetime and a person who does it correctly can become very rich. But how does one save correctly?

Saving the Wrong Way

   In order to learn how to save the right way, we need to examine how to save the "wrong way".

   Saving the wrong way is a lot like this: Your birthday was just last week and after collecting all of your birthday money from your generous relatives, you realize that you have earned a small fortune. Let's say $150. As you hold that money in your hand, your mind starts to race with plans of how you will spend it. You decide that you want that new Ricky Martin CD. And maybe you've been eyeing those pair of jeans at Old Navy. As you think of how many things you can buy with this wealth of yours, you decide to make a trip to the local mall. After a couple hours of shopping around, you find that you have only $10 left and think that you should just save it because there is nothing else that you want to spend it on.

   Saving the wrong way is a lot like this: Your birthday was just last week and after collecting all of your birthday money from your generous relatives, you realize that you have earned a small fortune. Let's say $150. As you hold that money in your hand, your mind starts to race with plans of how you will spend it. You decide that you want that new Ricky Martin CD. And maybe you've been eyeing those pair of jeans at Old Navy. As you think of how many things you can buy with this wealth of yours, you decide to make a trip to the local mall. After a couple hours of shopping around, you find that you have only $10 left and think that you should just save it because there is nothing else that you want to spend it on.

   What you just did was an example of saving the "wrong way" which was not saving at all or not thinking about it until you had spent nearly all of your money.

Saving the Right Way

   Now that you see how the wrong way to save works, understanding the right way is really rather easy.

   A person who saves the right way realizes that saving their money is very important so they decide to save a portion of their money before they go out and spend all their money.

   It's always important to have a plan to save and stick to it. If you want to save for that new stereo or for you college education, you need to tell yourself that you must save some money before you go out and spend the rest.

   Instead of spending all of that $150 right away, a good saver would say "I really think that I should save first by setting aside $50". Then they can go to the mall and spend the rest on things that they really want.

   I know it's really hard to set money aside and not touch it for a long time but it is really important to do this. Many goods such as cars are very expensive and most people cannot afford to buy one with just one paycheck so they have to save for it.

   If you want to become a young investor, you have to have money to invest. So before you start to actually invest, you need to start yourself on a saving plan and decide how much you can save first. When you have enough money from your savings, you can use that money to buy stock in a company.

   Over time, your savings habits will develop and will help you acquire your fortune.

 

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