• Pay yourself first
  • Save a set amount each and every month (10% is a good rule of thumb), no matter what other financial obligations you have.
  • If you saved $100 per month for 40 years at 5%, you would have over $150,000.
  • Have at least 3 months of income saved as an emergency fund so that if something comes up, your set monthly savings is not interrupted.
• Get out of debt
  • Start by paying off all high interest items which would normally be credit cards.
• Don’t settle for very low interest
  • In June of 2025 the average bank savings account interest rate was only 0.4% whereas if you did some research you could find a bank savings account yielding 4.4%.
  • If you saved $100 per month for 40 years at 4.4%, you would have a little over $130,000.
  • If you saved $100 per month for 40 years at 0.4%, you would have at little over $50,000.
• Do not buy expensive cash value life insurance policies.
  • Instead buy term life insurance to save many dollars give give you many times more coverage.
  • For example, a 40 year old female (in 2025) might pay $350 per month for $250,000 of cash value insurance.
  • For example, a 40 year old female (in 2025) might pay $40 per month for $1,000,000 of cash value insurance.

• You can use credit cards to take advantage of points.
  • But if you do make sure you pay them off every month so that you pay no interest and have zero balances.
• Start saving as early as you can
  • If you started saving $100 per month at 5% at age 20 and continued to age 60, you would have a little over $150,000.
  • If you waited to start saving $100 per month at 5% until age 40 and continued to age 60, you would only have a little over $40,000.

CAUTION – Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you