Track Your Savings Each Month

To truly "save," you need to 1) monitor how much you're saving, 2) where you're saving it and 3)then you have to physically put that money into a separate account.

Case in point, food shopping -- you pride yourself on using coupons and make sure you have your grocery store loyalty card. You get to the check-out, pay your bill and get your receipt. Now closely look at your receipt. Most grocery stores print your savings at the bottom, which normally includes sale items, coupons, etc. Circle that number and put the receipt in an envelope. Now you'll need to do this for every purchase where you save money. If you don't get a receipt, write the savings on a piece of paper and put it in the envelope.

At the end of the month, take out your envelope. Go through all of your receipts and add up the savings. Now once you have your total, you'll need to take that amount of money from one of your bank accounts or cash and move it into savings.

You can even turn it into a game to see if you can beat your total each month. I began doing this exercise a few months ago and have averaged approximately $200 each month.

Try it and let me know what your total savings is for the month. Can you beat $200?