Making your First 1K & 5K

As I said before in GET SET GO- JOB I made nearly $5000 dollars working just the weekends at minimum wage flipping burgers or in this case making tacos. In three years time. That's not too shabby when you have all week off for school and homework and your evenings free. This is a great way to get started on building up that savings account to your first k. K meaning thousand. Just like how M means Million. Want to know more about SI prefixes check out this link and the chart on Wikipedia.

STEP 1: TAKE HALF
If you want to make it big you have to start saving now in order for it to grow. Since you may still be living at home and this job is simply for you to learn those good old life lessons and responsibilities mom and dad want to teach you. Start by taking that paycheck when you get it and slice it in half. Placing half of it into Savings and the rest into your pocket or your checking.

I was a little more frugal with my saving habits. When I got a paycheck nearly all of it went into Savings. Say my paycheck was $253.89 I got to keep $53.89 in my pocket for myself to spend. The rest went into savings. A big cut but guess who's savings account will be bigger at the end of the year?

STEP 2: WORK WITH IT
If you have to spend money for gas to get to work try to be aware of cheaper alternatives. See if anyone from where you work at is coming from the same direction as you and hitch a ride. If not see if public transit is cheaper to buy once than to keep refilling your tank. Are you able to walk to work when it's nice? Could you ride your bike? These little cut backs can save you more than $10 when you go to fill up your gas tank.

Can you make that $53.89 or so last till your next pay? If so great! You've already started to become aware of your spending habits! But don't think that just because you have it in savings means that you can go dipping in it whenever you run out. That's not what your savings is there for. If you have a problem with this and know that there isn't going to be any real emergencies on your part then open up a short term CD and put your money in there.

CD's are Certificates of Deposit that have thier own set of rates and interest but once your money goes into them you can't get it back out until the times up. Think of them as money ovens you put your money in them for a certain amount of time. The shortest being 91Days and you can't touch that money until the times up but in that time your money gained a special amount of interest.