1. Treat your savings accumulation like a bill, and pay yourself first.

Before paying those bills make sure you pay yourself first. 10% is a good place to start. Increase it as often as you can to retire in the lifestyle that you would like.

2. Take full advantage of retirement accounts.

Tax free retirement accounts are the closest thing you can get to free money. You get to build your savings in tax deductible or tax deferred retirement accounts. A 401K when matched by an employer really amplifies the affect of this retirement savings plan.

3. Automate your savings

Setup a direct deposit from your paycheck to your savings account. You won’t even notice the money missing from your account after a while. The money comes out before you can consume it by buying Latte’s. See the Automatic Millionaire blog entry.

4. Create other sources of income

Get a side job. Find something you like to do on the side and make money at the same time. You really don’t want to waste time watching another rerun of The Simpsons do you?

5. Use windfalls and raises to save and pay down debt.

When you receive a windfall from a tax return of from a raise pay down your debt and/or put money into savings. You won’t miss it because you never received it in the first place.

6. Use Coupons

I personally use coupons to OfficeMax/Office Depot al the time. I get $10 off $50 spent on office supply products. There are hundreds of ways to save money using coupons. When your doing some home renovation look for coupons from Ace, HomeDepot or Loews. When we moved into our new house Loews sent us a $100 off coupon. I was amazed. If you are going to buy the products anyway you might as well save money doing it.

7. Cut down on impulse buying and avoid buying unnecessary stuff.
Do you really need that X. Wait a day or 2 and think whether you really need that thing you thought you couldn’t live without.

8. Reinvest interest and dividends from investments.
A painless way to beef up your investments is to reinvest any interest and dividends and give your investments a chance to build.

9. Request a lower income withholding from your paycheck
Look at the past year and see if you paid anything in taxes. If you didn’t pay any taxes your withholding may be set too high. Lower your withholding and take the excess money that you would have paid and put that money into savings or debt reduction. If your withholding is too high you are giving the government a tax free loan for the year. You might as well take the money and use it to your advantage.