Aahh. Money. It’s great to have money. It can’t buy you love, but it can sure as hell buy you a lot of other things. It’s probably everyone’s dream to live the good life, right? However, while it may a bit too optimistic to dream of retiring a millionaire, being driven around in a limo, living in a mansion, and spend idle hours by the pool sipping Bacardi, that shouldn’t stop you from knowing the feeling of having no liabilities and only seeing your assets grow.

For regular Joes and Janes, achieving even the second scenario can be a bit complicated. A nine-to-fiver job can earn you only as much and considering all the costs that you incur per month can mean that saving up your first million can be a very hazy idea.

So it goes to say that even with your own money, you have to consider that part of it goes to your necessities and part of it can be spent for whatever you want. And it’s the second type that you want - money that you can really spend. But to do that, you need to fatten your savings. As with business, there are two ways to get that piggy bank fat - to cut costs and increase income.

OBSERVE

You always have to know what you got and where your money’s going. While you can simply look at you account balance every month, you might be losing perspective that you can get from the finer details. Cash basically goes two ways - in and out. Here’s a simple budget sheet that you can follow to monitor how much goes in and how much goes out:

Net Income
1. Job 1
2. Job 2
Total

Debt
1._____
2._____
3._____
Total

Rent and Utilities
1. Rent/Mortgage
2. Electricity
3. Water
4. Gas
5. Phone
Total

Food
1. Grocery
2. Eating Out
Total

Transportation
1. Car payment
2. Car insurance
3. Gas
4. Maintenance
5. Commute
Total

Children
1. College Plan
2. Allowance
Total

Entertainment
1. Movies
2. Subscriptions
3. Others
4. CDs and DVDs
Total

Miscellaneous
1. Health
2. Insurance
3. Furniture
4. Laundry
5. Pets
6. Others
Total

The Grand Totals
Total Net Monthly Income - Total Expenses = Savings

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Getting a positive value means that you’re doing relatively good with your finances. However, don’t be fooled by that positive value. That doesn’t mean that you can go on spending it. Set-up an emergency fund (a fund that you keep handy amounting to 3 months’ worth of expenditures) first since you never know what would happen in the future.

If you get a negative value, then you better check the biggest leaks and plug them soon. Debts usually are the biggest leaks but if you can do away with some of the non-necessities or cut your spending with those, better take action. Get out and stay out of debt.

SAVE

While you can argue that saving isn’t really making money, well it does give you a chance to get more spending money. This is clearly a cost-cutting measure and is an easier way to fatten the bank. It’s true what they say, a penny saved is a penny earned. Good news for you, saving doesn’t make you double your workload in your office. You just have to put in some effort, probably shift a bit your ways of living but there are a lot of ways to penny pinch.

If you’ve sprung a leak in your budget start by cutting your losses. Look at the parts of your cash outflow where you can cut spending. Some think that doing away with the few luxuries is always the best thing to do. Well, if you can live without movies, magazine subscriptions, or eating out for now, then do so. However, I personally believe that you do not need shortchange yourself when it comes to these small luxuries. What I suggest is to focus on other the other expenses and find ways to save a few dollars from those.

Conserve energy. Turn off and unplug appliances when not in use. Fix leaks in your home. These small things add up to reasonable amounts.

Be a sensible buyer. Impulse buying is a real savings killer. If you don’t need to buy, don’t. Take time before committing your cold hard cash to anything. Be out for the best deals both online or in stores. Monitor how you rack up your grocery bills and you might find a way to save on grocery bills.

Pennypinching does involve a bit of work and many think that being one makes them look cheap, hurts their pride. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to jockey for position in clearance sales or cutting out coupons or haggling for discount if it’s all for saving a few dollars that could eventually add up to a hefty sum.

SELL

Another man’s junk, is another man’s treasure. Over the years, you collect so many things that you end up not using anyway. You do have what can be called idle assets. And there’s money to be made from these.

Visit the garage and the attic and start cleaning them out. You need not throw your old away just because you think they’re useless. Sell them. You’d be amazed that your old things would fetch a good price with all those collectors flocking garage sales. Take a good inventory though. Who knows, you might find a prized antique in your collection of junk. You not only earn some spendable cash, you get to reclaim storage space too.

Take a look at your other larger assets too. If you have two cars, try to think of the practicality of having both around. If letting go of one wouldn’t make your life miserable, you might want to let go of one. Imagine the savings you’d make from not gassing it up, maintaining it, and paying for car insurance.

Now you might think that selling is just liquidating your assets but think about it. Your old stuff is just junk until you sell them.

WORK

Cutting costs is well, working within your own means. Now if you want to make that bank fatter, go for the second option - increase income.

Income varies from job to job, from industry to industry. If you belong to industries that provide top compensation, then you might just have to focus on your work, get raises in regular intervals, and strike out to be the top dog in the business. However, if your job earns you barely enough to pay the bills, then it’s probably time to think about getting two jobs instead. Sure it’s pretty hard and tiring, but another job simply means extra income.

Freelancing is a really viable source of income. If you’ve been around in the industry for long, you can be a consultant for hire. Strike out from your existing base of contacts to find potential clients who can probably hire you when you’re free. However, check your contract for a clause that might get you into trouble.

One caveat in working two or more jobs though, check if you’re really earning. Having a second job means that you will also be putting in extra overhead like transportation and meal expenses while working the second job. If you only earn a few dollars more than what you get working one job, then the effort might not be worth it.

Some of the things you do as a hobby, you can actually monetize. Writing is one thing that you can actually make money from without having to quit your day job. Write a book or some articles during your free time. You can earn a decent extra by getting published.

Blogs, for example, have proven to be one thing that people can do on the side and from which earn really good money. A lot of other bloggers have even quit their day jobs since they’re earning twice or even thrice than they did working a nine-to-five. Some, even made their fortunes by investing in new these technologies and new media. Which brings us to another way of making money.

INVEST

If you have ample extra money and you already have an emergency fund available, why not invest the extra. There are two things that you should generally remember with investments - 1) you should have the money and 2) it takes a while to make a real profit.

Investments opportunities can come in many forms. Stocks and real estate are the common ones. If you are investing in stocks, be sure that you have a fair amount of knowledge of the industries and markets. You also have to keep track of stock values often. Know when to sell and buy. If you’re a first-time player in the stock market, try investing a small sum first. Just to get a feel of how things go.

Foreign currency, like stocks, can be also be worthwhile investments. Remember when the Euro was about the same value as the US dollar? Now the Euro’s value is not 35% more than it used to compared to the dollar.

As for real estate, it starts by looking into parcels of land that has the potential to be choice real estate. Remember that it takes a while for land values to spike up so you might be in for at least five years to make a profit out of it. Even college housing can be turned into an investment opportunity.

Business ventures could also present themselves as investment opportunities. You just have to be careful which venture to support. Promises of quick and easy profit could be dubious. A lot of scammers are out there waiting for first-time investors to bite.You can also invest on long term deposits, earning money from interest. Open time deposit accounts or those long-term deposits packages offered by banks that pay out a nice interest rate. If you don’t have plans on spending the cash anytime soon, why not keep it safe in the bank while earning a good sum out of the interest.

You can also look into employer-sponsored savings. If your company offers a 401(k) option, pounce on it. It sure isn’t attractive for those who try to live for the moment but this offers you a great deal of cushion when you retire.

Investment takes a bit of risk from your end. But hey, that’s the way it is. You really have to be brave in order to strike it big.

START A BUSINESS

Now this last option combines the previous two - working an extra job and investing. If you think that you will be able to manage, why not open a small business of your own. It’s a common notion that you need to have a large capital to make this work but many have proven otherwise.

It takes more guts than bucks to put up your own business. It need not be big. It might just even start in your own garage, kitchen or even in your computer. Handy with the cars? Start a garage. Mastered granny’s old cookie recipe? Bake and sell your own specialty cookies.

Do your research. Deal with the paperwork. Scout partners and clients. It’s during the first years that your small business demands much attention so be patient and work hard. The payoff in seeing your company soar and watching the profits constantly rolling in would beat all the possibly tiresome effort you’ve put into it.

Remember, the most proven way to make money is to work for it. Get rich quick schemes are most of the time flash in the pan. So if you want to get rich sometime, there’s no better time to start fattening that piggy bank than now.

For more tips on money management in general, read our money articles and visit Money Crashers.