What extra money you ask?
The money in your pocket thanks to falling gas prices. According to AAA gas prices have fallen ≈81 cents/gallon since the April 2014 peak price of nearly $4/gallon.
Like me, you probably drive a car that uses gasoline. If your household buys 4 tanks of gas a month you have nearly 50 extra dollars per month in your pocket. Odds are you probably haven’t noticed it. Because those dollars stay in what I call the “vortex of spending” and get spent somewhere else.
The trick is to remove the dollars from the vortex and send them off to good home at an FDIC insured bank. (Such as Barclay’s online savings). Start a weekly savings program and automate it. I like weekly because the outgoing amounts are smaller. Psychologically we think “Yeah, I can handle that”. Take that $50/month gas savings and send it out electronically from your checking to your savings account — $12.50/week automatically.
Next month when you dump the premium cable channels that you never watch, add that savings to the automated weekly savings plan.
A few months after that when you pay off that last student loan, throw yourself a little party, and then add that savings to the automated weekly savings plan.
Make a game out of looking for ways to remove dollars from the vortex and before you know it you’ll have a small but growing nest egg.
