I study a martial art.  Occasionally after class my Sensei will tell us

What you learned tonight is just a tiny drop in the bucket.  In the grand scheme of this art tonight wasn’t much.  But one day you’ll look at your bucket and see it’s filled up.  What you are learning will start to accumulate and you’ll need a new, bigger bucket.

Know what?  He’s right.

When I started taking classes I felt like I would never “get” this art.  But with persistence and patience it all started to take hold.  I’m no longer the green student I was on that first day about a decade ago.  Now I’m a black belt.  My bucket filled up but I have a new, bigger one to fill up now.

Great story right?

“What’s that have to do with us” you may ask.

Saving is the same way.  When you have no savings it can seem almost impossible to imagine having a lot saved up.  I’ve been there.  I remember days thinking “why bother?”  But it is possible to save even if it’s just small amounts.  Let me give you an example:

When I come home from work I empty my change into a small dish on my night table.  It’s never much.  Fifty cents here.  Twenty two cents there.  When the dish fills up I move the change to a bigger jar we have.  When I make that first drop into the big jar it’s hard to imagine how much it would take to fill it up.  But I keep at it.  It usually takes about a year to fill that jar up.  My wife and I look at that jar salivating at the prospect of cashing it in.  We cash it in just before our yearly vacation so we have some extra money for food and such.  The last time we cashed in our jar at the bank it yielded around $150.

You see that?  Emptying the change in my pocket yielded $150 in a year.  Those pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters finally added up to something more substantial.

This is something anyone can do!  Take a look around you and ask yourself what little things you can do to save money.