My 10% Savings Habit is 2 Months Strong
Back in January 2010 I read “The Richest Man In Babylon,” and as a result, immediately made myself start saving the first 10% every time I received a payment for something.
Regardless of how small or large the payment was, I stuck to my guns and pushed 10% of it into a savings account before allocating anything else to other categories in my budget.
I have income arriving on average twice each week. Some of my income streams pay monthly while others pay twice a month, but all told I get payments of some kind about twice every week. I think this helped me instill the savings habit more easily.
If I were paid just once each month, I’d have an entire 30 days to forget I’d made the commitment. Too much time between repetitions would make it easier to forget, make excuses and slack off.
In the beginning I found myself looking at my budget every single day, even on days I didn’t receive income of any kind. This helped me reassure myself that I was on track with finances and hadn’t overlooked anything important. This also helped me remind myself that I was committed to making the financial changes I’d set up for myself at the beginning of the year.
Now I did find myself plowing into the budget a couple of times–allocating funds to groceries or truck maintenance before remembering I hadn’t removed the first 10% yet. When that happened I made myself back up, reallocate money to the savings plan, and remove money from other categories if I’d already gone too far. I forced myself to stick to the plan and fixed it immediately if I’d initially forgotten. I took the “no excuses” approach to making sure it happened, and it worked like a charm :)
Now that I’ve been doing this for a solid two months I’m fairly confident the habit is decently strong. Just to be on the safe side I’m not making any assumptions though. I plan to stay diligent and very aware of the savings plan to ensure I get the habit so strongly in place that I won’t be able to not do it in the future.
I’m feeling sure enough about it now that this month I’ve added a second 10% habit: Putting the second 10% to debt.
Out of each and every income payment I receive, I will put the first 10% to savings, the second 10% to debt, and all other living expenses will be drawn from the remaining 80% of funds available… no matter how little or how much money comes in.
Tags: habits, money management, personal finance, self improvement, success
