That’s interesting! This is one topic everyone will read very carefully because it all about finding money! Imagine that you found Rs 1000 between the pages of an old book on the shelf. You kept it some months back and forgot about it. How does it feel? Even if that money was never found, you would have still lived with what’s left in your wallet without even bothering where it disappeared. isn’t it?
This is the principle behind accumulating savings from your income. Set aside your target savings and forget about it as if it were not there and live with the rest. It’s not easy as you think,but definitely not impossible. And , it’s never too late to apply this principle !

To most of us Savings = Income (or salary)- Expenses . However, this formula doesn’t work ( as you would have already experienced ) since when money is in your pocket, you get trapped by advertising tricks like discount offers on Clothes or new gadgets which tempts you to spend more. It’s difficult to control expenses. As a result, your savings never hits the target. If what we said holds true for you and you seriously want to save a fixed 10% or 20% of your take home salary each month, you need a different approach to savings. We suggest Robert Kiyosaki’s method from his famous book ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’.
What kiyosaki said is very simple. Instead of trying to limit your expenses every month, first deduct an amount which you intend to save and keep it in a separate account so that you live with only what’s left. So our formula has to be modified like this :

INCOME – SAVINGS(INVESTING FUND) = EXPENSES

Smart ! isnt’ it ? This formula forces you to “pay yourself first,” before the other expenses. That way you know your savings will not get lost in the daily grind of living expenses.
The other side of this formula is a forced discipline. You hold your expenses to no more than 90% of your take home pay.
You can even automate the process by having 10% (or any amount you want) deducted from your Salary account and transfer it into a separate account or fixed deposit, recurring deposit or other savings instrument .
So that’s the basic trick to find money!
But, that’s not all. You can also find money from many other sources. For example, Instead of going for parties and shopping, you can set aside extra payments like bonuses, commissions and so forth into your savings Fund.
So try to make it a habit to set aside 10% ( or what ever percentage you would like to set aside) and live with rest. If you do that, you have a great chance to succeed.

MORE TIPS TO CONTROL YOUR EXPENSES:

SPEND LESS

This is one simple method to save more. Sit back and analyse your spending habits and look where you spend more unnecessarily. Once you have identified certain areas of high spending, try to find ways to cut back. Take a decision that you’ll not spend more than a fixed budget.

MAKE A BUDGET

A budget is a very important tool to control expenses. Be it individuals or corporates. A budget is nothing but a chart or a statement that shows how much you earn and hence, how much you can spend.

PAY OFF YOUR LOANS

Loans carry high rates of interest. If you have a lot of EMI’s to pay, it naturally reduces your capacity to save more. It also shows that you’re living on high levels of debt which is not a right thing to do. If you have loans, first look for ways to pre-pay it as soon as possible. Another common area where you could lose a lot of money is credit cards. Credit cards companies slap huge interest for delayed payments.

TRY TO AVOID LATE PAYMENTS

Any bills – like electricity or telephone or internet or credit card has a deadline within which you are supposed to pay the dues. Unnecessarily delaying such payments results in payment of fines. Such expenditures can be avoided if you can get organized on your bill payments. Make a list of monthly payments and the deadline within which you are supposed to pay. These days banks also allow their customers to automate or link their periodic bills to their savings account or credit card.
Credit cards over dues need particular mention here. Credit card companies slap huge interest and fines for delayed payments.

THINK BEFORE YOU BUY

Do not buy anything on impulse. Before laying your hands on any fancy thing which is up for sale, think if it’s really needed.

SHOP SMART

Most of the big brands will be available at throw away prices once there’s an off season sale or sales promotion drive. For example if you want to buy an expensive watch, wait for the company to announce some discount offers. All the big brands announce discount offers at least twice a year.

KEEP DISTANCE FROM LAVISH FRIENDS

High spending lavish friends are may hinder your route to save money. It’s natural for you to get tempted by such friends to buy new gadgets every year. They may be nice guys and may not harm you in anyway, but to keep up with them , it may become necessary for you to spend high ( for example latest electronic items or cars , parties, expensive dresss etc ) which other wise ay not be required !

SAVING ENOUGH IS HALF THE JOB DONE

If you have saved enough,good. but saving is only half the job done.You have to give your savings the right opportunity to grow. Putting all your funds in fixed deposits or fixed income bonds is not a good idea. Your investments should have the right mix of equities, bonds, gold and fixed deposits.Deciding the ‘right mix’ of investments is something an investment expert can do. It depends on an individual’s age and risk profile.

KNOW IT

• Finding money is a matter of making it a priority.
• Pay yourself first and learn to live off with what is left. You will always have money with you. It may be difficult at first. But gradually, you will see your fund growing and that would encourage you to stick to it until you reach your goal of finding enough money.
• Bonuses and extra pays you get are opportunities to buy the latest iphone or Blackberry but a prudent option would be to create a savings out of it
• You can save a lot of money if you control your expenses.
• As time goes by, your small saving will also give you additional money in the form of interest. Finally, you’ll find that you’ve done a great job,creating more money than expected.

Take our word. It’s fool proof !!

I love my grandfather’s stories. We won't get into the ones that my grandma loves to scoff at. Like his brave encounters with tigers. Or the one about the milk that needed boiling. 
But you must listen to this one. My dear grandpa used to buy 10 litre of milk for 50 paise and 40kg of rice for one rupee a good sixty years ago!  

Don't believe me? Then sample this. In those days, there were coins of one paise and even less! Incredible, eh? But I have seen those with my own eyes in my father's collection of old coins.
What’s more, I also remember seeing and transacting in five paise and ten paise coins in my childhood. Alas! My son won't get to see those currencies. Except in a collection of old coins perhaps. 
Wondering why I am rambling about one paise coins and getting into the generation business? 
This is not a “Kal Aaj aur Kal” story. Or maybe it is. 
If you have an eye for detail you will have noticed the common thread that runs through these anecdotes. The point that I have been trying to make is how expensive things have become over the years. 
My grandfather used to buy 40kg of rice for one rupee and today a kilo of rice costs Rs30! Ten litre of milk cost 50 paise in his days but today you need at least Rs180 to purchase the same amount. 
See what the passage of time has done. It has eroded the value of money. Having Rs800 today is equivalent to having one rupee fifty years ago. 
Economists call it a decline in the purchasing power of money. The purchasing power of money is the amount of merchandise that a unit of money (say a rupee) can buy. 
And the term “inflation” has its roots right there. When the purchasing power of money dwindles with time, the phenomenon is called “inflation”. This is manifested in a general rise in prices of goods and services.
But why do prices rise? Let us understand why this happens with the help of a simple example. Onions are an integral part of any food preparation in our country. Can you think of having a meal without having a dish that contains onion? Why, onion and chapattis constitute the staple diet for many people!
Let us assume the onion crop fails in a particular year, for whatever reason.
What happens then? The supply of onions in the market drops. However, people still need onions. Inevitably, the price of onion shoots up as people scramble to buy the limited supply of onions. 
Remember November of 1998? Such a situation had actually happened in several parts of the country.  It had nearly brought down the government. The price of onions had risen to as high as Rs40 per kg or more. 
But how does a simple thing like a one-off drop in onion supply causes prices to rise across the board in a sustained fashion? 
In the winter of 1998, the dabbawallas and restaurants were forced to hike their prices in response to the rising prices of onions. Even your local barber and maidservant demanded a higher pay to meet their higher daily expenses. All thanks to the (mighty?) onion. This set off a chain reaction. 
How?
Think again. It is not only onions that we consume in the course of a day. There is a whole basket of products and services that we draw on, on a day-to-day basis.
Hence, some of you decide to use more of garlic to make up for the lack of onion. The demand for garlic goes up. A few who eat raw onions decide to substitute it with more of tomato and cucumber. The local sabjiwala senses this shift in consumption happening. The smart businessman that he is, he hikes prices of all vegetables. He starts earning more money. Now his children demand that he should get them a new 21" TV with 100 channels.
And with all sabjiwalas rushing to the nearest TV shop, the sales for TV picks up. The TV company makes more money. Noticing the ballooning profits, the employees of the company demand a hike in their salaries. You are lucky to be working for one such profit-making company. You have more money in your pocket. And you have always wanted to buy a car...
We could go on and on, but you get the idea, don't you? The price rise is here to stay. We just need to understand the concept of inflation. After all, the main objective is to figure out how inflation affects the three friends, saver, borrower and investor.
We know how important it is for all of us to save. We all need to save for the day when we will not be earning but will still need to spend money on food, clothing and the occasional movie. 
What would have happened if my grandfather had saved a rupee fifty years back to buy rice now? Oh boy! It would have been a total rip-off. He would receive a few grains of rice in exchange for that amount.
In short, inflation is one BIG enemy of savers.
So, why should we save?
A good and important question. But we will come back to it later. We need to find out how this monster they call inflation affects our two other friends.
We know that borrowing is the opposite of saving. So if the saver is losing, the borrower must be winning.
Yes, of course. After all, the borrower borrows to spend today and repay later. Imagine if my grandfather had saved a rupee fifty years ago and my grandfather's neighbour had borrowed it from him. The neighbour could have bought 40kg of rice then and have had a feast. In case he repaid the money to my grandfather now, all that my grandfather would have been able to buy with the rupee would be a few grains of rice!
To top it all, the borrower spends NOW and adds to the inflation effect, compounding the misery of our saver.

What about our last friend, investor, the slightly difficult one to understand? 

Imagine once again (just one last time, we promise) that my grandfather's friend had invested a rupee in a paddy field. That is imagine if he had bought a paddy field with a rupee. The smart guy would have been raking in money today, selling a kg of rice at Rs30! 
Our investor friend seems a lot better off than even the borrower who benefits from inflation.
No wonder investing is always considered as a good thing to do to beat inflation. It is what textbooks call “hedging inflation”.
Inflation is constantly increasing the cost of goods and services and eating into the value of your income and wealth. You need to save money and invest it well so that the value of every rupee is augmented. There are several investment options available including equities, mutual funds, bonds, deposits, real estate and gold to name a few.