Secrets of the World’s Great Savers
Most middle-class workers find it hard to save money. But not all.
I founded the Financial Freedom Community in December 1999. Since then,
thousands of highly effective savers have come to our discussion boards to share
their strategies for winning financial freedom not at age 65, but many years sooner
than that.
What are their secrets?
Secret One: The World’s Great Savers do not save money to finance their old-
age retirements.
If you are now age 35, the day when you will turn 65 is three decades off in the
future. A goal that distant does not provide the motivation you need to save money
in the here and now.
Effective savers save for the benefits that saving money can provide within five years
or so. They do provide for their old-age retirements, of course. But the driving force
of their money management efforts is to attain goals that can be achieved more
quickly than that.
Secret Two: The World’s Great Savers have a positive view of the saving
experience.
What phrase or word first comes to mind when you hear the word “saving?” Is it
“cutting back?” Is is “doing without?” Is it “Scrooge?” Is it “miser?”
If it is any of those, you may have just identified the cause of your lack of success
with your saving efforts. Saving money yields benefits, just as spending money
does. To save well, you need to see saving as a money choice that provides benefits
of its own, not one that denies you the benefits of spending.
Secret Three: The World’s Great Savers enjoy planning.
Businesses don’t ever shoot from the hip when making money decisions. Most
workers do. To manage your money effectively, you need to handle your money in
the way in which the company you work for manages its money. You need to plan.
Secret Four: The World’s Great Savers don’t find it boring to keep a budget.
Most of us find it boring to keep a budget. That’s why most of don’t like to plan our
money allocation decisions. The world’s great savers don’t find budgets boring.
Why? Because they focus on the exciting side of the budgeting process. Just about
everything you want to do with your life requires spending. So a budget is not really
a plan for how to spend money. It is a plan for how to live. Come to see that your
budget is a Life Plan, and you will find yourself at last becoming able to stick with
your budget.
Secret Five: The World’s Great Savers are not misers.
People who succeed at saving money are not generally people who hate spending.
The reality is quite to the contrary.
People who succeed at saving love spending. Saving a portion of your
income permits you to earn more from the compounding of investment returns.
Those who save ultimately spend more than those who do not.
The World’s Great Savers love spending. That’s why they love saving too.
Rob Bennett is the author of Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and
Soul-Satisfying Work. The 50 articles at his http://www.passionsaving.com site report
on how those seeking financial freedom early in life save, invest and plan career
changes differently than others. His Financial Freedom Blog
http://www.passionsaving.com/the-financial-freedom-blog.html provides daily updates
on how to win financial freedom to do the work you love.
