What would you do if your car broke down today? Could you afford the repair costs? What would happen if you get sick? These are questions you need to ask yourself. My car has put me out of work on several occasions. I was living paycheck to paycheck, 1 catastrophe from homeless. I couldn’t afford a sick day. These are the struggles that led me to growing my financial education and developing plans that are working for me to better myself all around.

Making change is hard but it is a must if you’re going to get out of your own way. Over the last year and a half I have listened to over 80 self help and finance books. They all contradict each other with advice but are packed with information. While listening, I didn’t put anything into practice, I was just taking it all in and coming up with a plan I thought would work for me. Here I will share the most effective ways to start your path to savings and happiness.

How much does your life cost? The first step to starting a plan is figuring out where to start. Add up all your spending, even the stupid stuff, for the whole month. When doing this, I want you to check for any subscriptions you don’t use or maybe duplicate charges. I also want you to call any services that you may be able to negotiate a better price or package (comcast, cellphone). You may be surprised at how much you can reduce your monthly spending just from this. I will have a more detailed guide for this in next months “Better Me” challenge.

2. Set up a meal plan at the end of each week to do your grocery shopping for the following week. I bought a whiteboard calendar and put it up in my kitchen. Every Saturday I take it down and plan next weeks dinner. My kids each have a color marker and I have them check off the meals they like, they also add meals they want. My kids have also been writing a list of things they need or that we run out of. This has helped keep unplanned spending at bay. Check out January’s “Better Me” challenge for more on how that is working.

3. Start a side hustle. Now, this is how I gave myself a raise! I’ve been driving uber and lyft as well as delivering for amazon, postmates, and doordash for over 2 years now. I don’t recommend quitting your job as I did, I made really little money for a really big commitment. Using these apps, you can make extra on your own time. With rideshare you can set your destination there by turning your commute into cash you can use towards savings. This feature is available twice a day making it and easy $20-$40 extra a day without any extra effort.

4. Open separate goal savings accounts including a spend freely account for this extra money that is coming in. Even $5 a day from a side hustle adds $1300 a year, if you do it 5 days a week. It’s really that simple. This month I am on a spending freeze and in order to stick with it I opened up 3 goal accounts that I get to spend money on every day. This has made a difference for me. I am a consumer, like everyone else I enjoy going to my favorite store and finding bargains or just buying what I want. By sending money to the accounts every day, it’s spent.

I am A work in progress, and these are the steps I am using to better myself. These are in no way a financial plan to wealth or retirement. These are steps to get you in the habit of saving and the mindset to grow wealth. Along with reading a book every week to grow my education, I use these and other steps to save money and pay off my debt in the next 2 years.