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From the time we were children our parents told us how important it was to save money. We all remember our first piggy bank. Maybe yours was a turtle, or an actual bank where you put the coins in a tube and they rolled down the tube into the right section for that coin. Which is why it amazes me to this day that a lesson we have been taught since we were old enough to hold money, many of us still have not mastered.

Saving money is not like riding a bike, where all you need to do is get on the bike and you remember. For some reason the fascination with watching the coins roll in the tube or hearing the coins shake in our little piggy or turtle has dwindled. Perhaps it is because we never really learned how to save money; we just knew it was fun to put our coins in the banks to hear the noises.

This is why I decided that it was important to provide you with tips that I picked up from a few people I know that have been successful at saving money. Picking their brains was fun, and I have to tell you the tips I got from there are easy to follow… and more importantly, they make sense.

Tip One: Give Your Savings Meaning

Probably the number one reason people struggle with saving money is because they don’t see why they need to, what is the point? You can’t take it with you, and if you are saving for a rainy day… what if it never rains? The recommendation, forget that philosophy and save for a reason. Start small, say there is a new bedroom set that you really want. Find out the total cost, and then take a look at your finances and see how much you can set aside each week or every other week towards your new bedroom set. Believe it or not this tip came from a waitress I met in Florida. She had saved for three months for a set of silk sheets she wanted for her bed. She set $5 a side each and every week until she had enough money to buy them. There as purpose to her saving, something tangible and she felt really good about her savings when she was able to go buy the sheets.

Tip Two: Make the Saving Automatic

Ahhh, the beauty of technology, most people have direct deposit. Which means that they really don’t even see their paycheck… it automatically goes into their account. The successful money savers say that what you need to do is take part of your pay and have the bank automatically put a certain dollar amount into a savings account. It is the whole out of site out of mind concept. If you don’t have to think about it you are more likely to do it.

Tip Three: Avoid Your Weakness

We all have them, whether it is Starbucks, Macy’s or the latest CD at the music store. Stay away from those temptations while you are trying to save. Look at it this way; you love your latte at Starbucks. Even if you get the small one you are going to plop down about $3, and let’s say that you go three times a week. If avoided that temptation you would save $468 a year… even if you cut back to going once a week you would save $312 a year.

You don’t have to give up everything in your life. All you have to do is take simple steps to help increase your savings. One Starbucks a week instead of three, have the bank set up an automatic transfer at each paycheck and give the money you are trying to save meaning.

Neil Bartlett is the founder of CheapInsider.com. Cheap Insider provides everyone with Tips and Techniques for saving money and finding bargains. To learn more and INSTANTLY grab his FREE report “10 Money Saving Tips”