How I Pay Myself First.

In my quest to constantly improve my money management I have decided to do more than just think about paying myself first but to actually do it. I have come to believe that saving must become a priority and not just an added benefit of leftover money in order to build wealth. Building money and investments requires true dedication and commitment as well as constantly practiced disciplines. Without discipline and dedication spending less than you earn will never work and you will be on your way to constant credit card debt and pretty much end up either going downward financially or not improving at all. I think the problem with most people is they get stuck going no where financially. They save a little bit but the debt they ring up leaves them working hard for nothing, because they never improve. This was me, but not anymore.

Just as I pay bills every month I turned myself in a bill, because I had to be paid. To start with I have opened numerous online interest earning accounts. I have opened an online savings account with Capital One and both an online checking and savings account with ING Direct. And currently due to the the higher interest rates and my drive to pay myself more I am even thinking of opening an online account with Ally. Here is what I do currently with each of my accounts. I decided that my payment to myself should be a weekly bill and not monthly in order to shoot for growth and reduce the impact on myself. Therefore, from each of my online accounts I have set up an automatic savings plan to draft my checking account $10 for each account every single week after my direct deposit clears Friday morning. This may not seem like much and at first it isn't I do plan to increase these values as I become better at money management in the future. By taking the money away first thing I have paid myself first into accounts that I cant locally access, that I have taught myself to forget about building up a small cash nest egg. My goal would be to of course choose the highest interest earning accounts and use multiple accounts for different purposes. I use my ING Direct checking account as my emergency cash fund, and the savings account as possible capital to be used with funding my Sharebuilder.com accounts as they can be linked together for immediate transfers. And lastly my Capital One account is my sole forgotten account that I do not touch for any reason. My goal is to build up every online account I have to a minimum amount of $1000 in each account. Next is to continue paying myself and when I reach say $2000 open up $1000 Online CD's with each of the banks making my money untouchable to myself. As time progresses I hope to establish two CD ladders one at Capital One and the other at ING Direct. I do not expect this plan to get me rich by any means however I do believe that it will teach me the importance of paying myself first and prove to myself that I can do it. By removing the money immediately after I get paid it is as if I never had the money to begin with teaching me to learn to live on less money. As I master living on a reduced income, the goal is to increase the payments to myself until I have reached the lowest possible means reduced pay to live on. In the future I can use the established capital to invest and continue to use my acquired financial skill of paying myself first to earn more for my future.