Pay off your debt first – Your financial advisor may not suggest this to you as commissions often pay them. So they try to sell your investment vehicles instead. But seriously, you should pay off any bad debt that you have.
Once you’re debt-free, stay debt-free – There is no point slogging away to pay off your bad debt, and then get back into bad debt a few months later.
Start saving something, anything, and start today. Even if you can only save a few dollars each week, you’ll start to learn the habit of saving. And the longer your savings period, the better. The best time to save is 20 years ago; the second-best time is today.
Keep saving. Saving is a journey, not a race. This journey will probably continue until you retire.
Becoming a successful saver is a lifestyle change. It will require discipline and sacrifice.
Look for an investment that will let you drip-feed your savings. This will help provide a form of discipline, and your investment will also benefit from dollar-cost averaging.
Don’t wait for the next pay increase. Despite your best intentions, there will always be something else to spend it on. In general, increased income inevitably equals to increased spending. “Successful saving is not about how much you earn; it’s about how much you save”.
Once you’ve started to save, invest it to avoid temptation unless you are saving for a specific purchase.
Make a savings plan- what’s it for? When do you need it? How much do you need and how are you going to get there? Set a goal, reverse engineer it, set up a payment. And write the goal down.