10 easy ways to stash away thousands

Round it up -- or down. Another popular ploy, for those who balance their checkbooks by hand, is adding or subtracting a few bucks from each transaction.

MadWomanM says she never records the full amount of her deposit to her checking account and adds a dollar or five to any checks she writes.

"If I put in $105.38, I just write in $100," she wrote, "and I always subtract to the nearest dollar or sometimes, up to five dollars. I end up (with) a surplus almost every payday, which is handy."

Fee yourself. WryWit uses a slightly different method that also could work for folks who use personal finance software.

"I started imposing fees on myself," WryWit wrote. "In my checkbook register, there is a little column for fees. I use a check mark for $10 and a dash for $1. So for every $100 deposited I'll short $10, and every outgoing transaction I add a dollar. When the page is full I add them up and keep a running total at the bottom of the page. This makes it easy to reconcile the balance at any time, and when it gets up to a certain point, I transfer it into savings."

Saving raises. Some posters save all or part of every raise they get. Sweetnepenthe has lived on the same amount of take-home pay for the past eight years, dedicating every raise to increased retirement contributions and, when those are maxed out, to savings.

ImproperFraction saves half of each raise, noting that it doesn't feel like deprivation.

"Inflation is a gradual erosion of my dollar's buying power that I endure and make spending adjustments for throughout the year," the poster wrote. "But my pay raises don't creep up; rather they are sudden events. . . . So I'll save half of this sudden jump in income and add the rest to my spending funds.

"This has worked quite well for me throughout my working years; I am now in the position where the amount of money I save exceeds the amount of money I spend."

Divide and conquer your paycheck. Other posters save an amount equal to an hour's pay each day, or each week if they're just getting started.

"I have an automated transaction to pull $26.18 out of my account every week," wrote MusketeersPlus2, a union worker whose raises are known in advance. "I've even already set it up to change to $27.10" when his next pay hike kicks in.

Pay yourself last, too. The usual (and excellent) money tip is to pay yourself first by making sure a certain amount of your paycheck is deposited into savings or investment accounts. But Carolina Girl also pays herself last.

"I keep a pretty close check on monthly expenses," she posted. "If we have extra money due to less expenses (received a raise or bonus, gas bill goes down in the summer, less entertainment due to busy schedules, etc.), the extra is transferred to a savings account. I don't change my spending just because there's extra money."

Liz Pulliam Weston's new book, "Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want Out of Life," is now available. Columns by Weston, the Web's most-read personal-finance writer and winner of the 2007 Clarion Award for online journalism, appear every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions on the Your Money message board.

Updated Jan. 25, 2008

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