I’ve found one of the most effective ways to save money, especially as a younger guy who is constantly buying things, going out for dinners, and not worrying about pinching pennies is to have multiple sources of savings.

This plays on the same idea that having multiple sources of income, even if those extra sources are little in comparison to your main source, it still adds up.

For example, for my short-term (non retirement) savings, I save money in three ways:

1. Using automatic deposits into a high interest savings account like my ING Account. Every week, ING takes out a set amount of dollars from my chequing into my savings. This is most people’s first step to savings and it works great, because you end up budgeting around the weekly deposits.
2. Saving your change adds up too. With my girlfriend, we fill up a huge pickle jar with change. Once every 4-5 months it gets full. Our last take out, we cleared well over $200 on change we would have never thought of using.
3. Don’t just save your change, save your dollars and bills. A woman from Boston saved $12,000 just by collecting her $5 dollar bills. I’ve begun to start doing this slowly and it’s a nice companion to saving change.