Securing the Bag and Your Piggy Bank — 3 Fail-Proof Ways To Save Money

The average American family has around $9,000 saved in the bank. However, 69 percent of adult Americans have less than $1,000 in a savings account.

Saving money can mean the difference between starting ahead or falling behind quickly. A savings account is a great way to build your financial runaway, so you can live life more freely and deeply. We focus so much on getting money, starting businesses and investing.

The conversation about saving money is not spoken about enough.

Here are three fail-proof ways to go from dry savings to effortlessly stashing large amounts of cash in your savings account.

Save 20 percent every time you get paid

On your budget, add a savings line of just 20 percent of your paycheck. People often look at me strangely and think they will not be able to pay all their bills if they do.

The main problem is many people have spending issues. They are overspending each month, and then after spending everything, they believe they have nothing to save. It should be the opposite: pay your savings account first and then use the rest of the money to pay all the other bills.

I put $300 a week and $500 bi-weekly in my savings accounts. In total, I put $2,200 away each month. Usually, it is more because I throw extra money into my savings account when I am not traveling.

Have $100,000 as a goal and milestone points

Pull out a piece of paper and fold it in fourths. On the first and the third line, write “Saved Amount.” On the second and fourth lines, write “Milestone.” Under the saved amount, start at $1 and go up by $10 until you reach $100. When you reach $100, go up by $100 until you reach $1000. From $1,000, go up by $1,000 until you reach $10,000. Finally, go up by $10,000 until you reach $100,000.

Let $1, $10, $100, $1,000, $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, $25,000, $50,000, and $100,000 be your milestone points. For each milestone point, I highly recommend you do something for yourself. For example, once I saved $5,000, I started a podcast. At $10,000, I started dating again, and at $50,000, I will have sex again.

You don’t have to be extreme like me, but you can certainly pick things that excite you to get to work and challenge you. Reach for $100,000 saved, because if you fall short and only save $50,000, that’s great.

I promise you will live, feel, and experience life differently just by having a good amount of money in your savings.

Automate the saving process

Sending money into your savings is hard! Trust me, even with all the knowledge and power I know about saving money, it does not get easier. So, I don’t make a choice for myself anymore. You can automate how much money you want to send to your savings in your bank app. The best part is that you can make it weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly.

Take the willpower out of your hands and send up an automatic transfer to go into your savings account. Within a couple of months, you will celebrate how quickly 20 percent will grow into $5,000, $10,000 and beyond.

Of course,  it helps if you have more money to save.

Increase your income

The fastest way to save more money is by having more money. The hidden key in all the personal finances and getting out of debt books and programs is increasing your income. The average American makes $500 a week, of which 20 percent would be $100. If you doubled your weekly income by another $500, then it would be $200 you would be able to save each month.

This table below shows how much just saving 20 percent will do for you.

Put it together

Start saving 20 percent of your income, make $100,000 your major goal, automate the whole process, and maximize your income and time. But knowledge needs to be put to the test by working it out in your life. Your future self will be happy when you have more money in your bank account than ever before.

Bertrand Ngampa is the founder of The 1% Man and the host of “The 1% Man Podcast.” He is a best-selling author, high-performance coach, business strategist, speaker, consultant, and Army veteran.