Pay yourself first

This report provides advice to help business students succeed on saving money after graduating college. The advice was obtained through a presentation in business communications class from Professor Kohler. Bill Kohler has a 25 years of experience in real-estate business. According to Professor Kohler, one of the main key elements to grow wealthy slowly include: pay yourself first.

• Pay yourself first

Pay yourself first means save before doing anything else. Instead of paying all the bills and expenses first and then saving whatever is left over, do the opposite. Set aside money for investing, college, a down payment, or whatever requires a long-term effort, and then take care of everything else. Most people wait and only save what is left over—that is paying yourself last.

• Savings and investments

Savings and investments become a priority, not an afterthought. Without a budget or any type of plan, it is easy to get into the habit of saving whatever is left over at the end of the month. However, paying yourself first, forces to put savings goals first and foremost.

• Learn to live on less and spend mindfully

Find a way to live on less, for example begin estimating expenses like groceries. While it might not be easy at first, eventually learn to squeeze the most out of the set spending limits. And when extra dollars are heading straight into your own coffers instead of who-knows-where, it is a quite liberating.

• Saving becomes automatic

The best part of paying yourself first is that, eventually, it becomes automatic. Whether paying yourself first through online automatic deductions or stuffing money in investments manually, the habit in the end will become second nature.