Most middle-class workers find it hard to save money. But not all.

I founded the Financial Freedom Community in December 1999. Since then, thousands of highly effective savers have come to our discussion boards to share their strategies for winning financial freedom not at age 65, but many years sooner than that.

What are their secrets?

Secret One: The World's Great Savers do not save money to finance their old- age retirements.

If you are now age 35, the day when you will turn 65 is three decades off in the future. A goal that distant does not provide the motivation you need to save money in the here and now.

Effective savers save for the benefits that saving money can provide within five years or so. They do provide for their old-age retirements, of course. But the driving force of their money management efforts is to attain goals that can be achieved more quickly than that.

Secret Two: The World's Great Savers have a positive view of the saving experience.

What phrase or word first comes to mind when you hear the word "saving?” Is it "cutting back?” Is is "doing without?” Is it "Scrooge?” Is it "miser?”

If it is any of those, you may have just identified the cause of your lack of success with your saving efforts. Saving money yields benefits, just as spending money does. To save well, you need to see saving as a money choice that provides benefits of its own, not one that denies you the benefits of spending.

Secret Three: The World's Great Savers enjoy planning.

Businesses don't ever shoot from the hip when making money decisions. Most workers do. To manage your money effectively, you need to handle your money in the way in which the company you work for manages its money. You need to plan.

Secret Four: The World's Great Savers don't find it boring to

Most of us find it boring to keep a budget. That's why most of don't like to plan our money allocation decisions. The world's great savers don't find budgets boring.

Why? Because they focus on the exciting side of the budgeting process. Just about everything you want to do with your life requires spending. So a budget is not really a plan for how to spend money. It is a plan for how to live. Come to see that your budget is a Life Plan, and you will find yourself at last becoming able to stick with your budget.

Secret Five: The World's Great Savers are not misers.

People who succeed at saving money are not generally people who hate spending. The reality is quite to the contrary.

People who succeed at saving love spending. Saving a portion of your income permits you to earn more from the compounding of investment returns. Those who save ultimately spend more than those who do not.

The World's Great Savers love spending. That's why they love saving too.

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