Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Saving Money

So my friend bean has a great story on how to better budget as a family on her blog. If you're having trouble with you or your spouse (or both!) sticking to a budget, give what she and her hubby are doing a look. Might help. But the natural extension to this, in my mind, is saving money. Budgeting to not over-spend is a nice goal, but hopefully everyone out there is also budgeting so they can save a nice regular amount every month. And then hopefully everyone knows how to do something with that money. Hah!

Yeah, if you're laughing at one or both of those ideas, you need to get a copy of this book and read it. The best thing I can say about this book is that not only is it easy to read, it's motivating! You'll be encouraged in ways you never thought of before to "pay yourself first." I can't stress enough to the working folks I know how important it is to save for retirement. The government will only be there to collect their share when you die. They are not there for you before then. Oh sure, they'll help keep you alive as long as the cheaply can, but that's about it. Everything else is up to you. But with this book you can find out how to build the habits you need (and bean's budgeting idea is a very important building block) to retire wealthy, not just comfortably.

I was turned on to this book by Erik Troan way back in the day. I can honestly say that after building up way too much credit card debt and generally not living very diligently, that this book was a turning point. We were well on our way to a better life on our own before our fortune hit and we didn't have to worry about that any longer.

2 comments:

Lima Bean said...

thanks for the shout-out. it's funny, because i was going to post next on how this budget has helped us to get on a better savings plan, so you might be getting a shout-out back. i'm totally going to check out this book, though--i'm a sucker for these kinds of books.

jeepmama said...

Bean's post looks very interesting and I may just try that program. Of course, you already know how we're big Dave Ramsey fans, so we have no debt (but mortgage) and are actively saving for retirement and other goodies. Will look up this book, though...could use some additional motivation at times. Even though we're reached some of our goals, the monotony of spinning wheels can drag us down.