[Guest post by Koushik K] 

I learned many things from our savings & investing units. Here are the most important ones…

• Track my money weekly, not monthly.  Monitoring it & developing a budget can help determine where you want your money to go (instead of wondering where it went)
• Increase my automatic savings slowly so I won’t be overwhelmed –  the goal is to save 10-20 percent of your gross income towards retirement
• You can still have fun while you are on a budget; you just need to plan for it. Some people think it is like a diet, just telling you what you can’t have. But YOU choose where you want to spend your money. It doesn’t need to be hard and confusing; you just need to do it.
• Financial institutions, such as banks & credit unions, offer safe, secure, and convenient services that can help you save money and build toward a better financial future.
• People respond to incentives, and various incentives cause people to save money. The number one incentive is the money gained in a savings account via the interest rate of the account. With higher interest rates, people will typically save more as they can receive more money from their savings.

Saving and investing are two financial activities that will grant peace to you and your pocket. As we learned from this unit, it is always important to embrace the saving and investing techniques. Through the application of self-discipline, you will succeed.