Are you a good saver? Here’s how to become one!

To become an excellent saver over the long term you must get some sort of mental reward from saving – if saving is a difficult process (like resisting eating food when dieting), you might be able to do it for a little while but over time you’ll fail because we all only have limited amounts of willpower and energy. The real secret to being an amazing saver is to love saving – the secret is to have saving be a very enjoyable thing.

For some people saving money is very easy – they were either born with a mind or a disposition that rewards them when saving or they developed such a mind or disposition over time. Rarely will you see a really excellent saver who has to consistently battle himself or herself to put money away for the future or to resist spending in order to save – it’s just too hard to do over the long term.

Other people, however, just can’t seem to save. They spend all of their incomes (and sometimes even more) and they don’t seem to feel any reward by putting money away – it feels like a chore to resist spending all of their money or putting some money aside. They won’t become wealthy unless they strike it rich through luck or unless they have extremely high incomes. For most people who can’t seem to enjoy saving money, they will need to change their mind a bit in order to be able to become truly excellent savers capable of building real lasting wealth overthe long term.

How can you change your mind? That’s the hard part. You’ll need to force or will yourself to start saving at first despite any internal resistance you have to it. When you do save some money, take the time to sit down and think about what you just did:

• you acted like an adult
• you put money away for your future
• you put money away for your family’s future
• you are beginning to build wealth no matter how small the first step is
• you are beginning to work out your “saving muscle”

Reward yourself with a nice dinner, a nice movie on Netflix, or anything else you enjoy. Let the pleasure sink in and try to associate the pleasure with the act of saving money. Do this consistently and over time saving will seem more pleasurable and easier.

Here are some other tips to help you become an excellent saving:

1. Stop reading this article and go put $100 (or more) away immediately – literally transfer the money to a savings account or take $100 out of your wallet and stash it in a safe place
2. Open an online savings account so that you can have a bit more separation from your savings
3. Focus on big wins – small stuff like saving a few nickels and dimes a week will not cut it for you – it will only discourage you while depleting your energy and willpower to save money
4. Think of the overall cost of things when making a purchase instead of just focusing on the monthly payments or the upfront costs – excellent savers naturally think in holistic ways about their purchases instead of just focusing on the initial costs
5. Be easy on yourself if you falter at first but do not allow yourself to get derailed over the long term

Now, it’s possible that not everyone can be an excellent saver – as much as we want it to be true, it seems like some people either don’t have the personality or the internal energy to become excellent savers. That’s a sad proposition. However, if you’re reading this post, you’re very likely not one of those people – you’ve already shown excellent initiative and you’re already ahead of the game in your search for high-quality information. Go out and practice the tips above with vigor and intensity until you saving feels amazing for you also.