The word saving has almost become a dirty word in today’s world.

And yet, if you’ve landed on this article, it’s because you already understand how essential saving is to your financial peace of mind.

In this article, I’ll explain how to save money through a strategy that is both simple and highly effective.

Why Saving Is Important

“Earn, save, invest” is the fifth commandment in my book “The X Commandments of Financial Investing.”

Within this simple phrase lies the essential (and unavoidable) process for building wealth.

Strictly speaking, before earning there should also be “Develop your human capital,” and after investing there should be “Living off passive income.”
But for now, let’s focus on these three core steps, which are often confused or mixed up:

“Earn, save, invest.”

Investing without saving makes no sense.
Saving without earning makes no sense.

Earning means having money coming in.

From a salary, commissions, or profits from your own business. In other words: cash inflows.

For every euro that enters your bank account, you are always faced with a choice:

• spend it (consume it);
• save it.

One of today’s biggest problems is that people don’t save enough.

I don’t care whether wages are lower or the cost of living is higher.

People save too little.

And saving too little is one of the worst financial mistakes you can make.

By saving too little, you are sacrificing your future for the present.

Over the years, saving has been under attack from multiple sides.

Some consider it outdated or even “uncool,” believing it’s better to have everything immediately, seize the moment, and enjoy life now.

Others confuse saving with being cheap or stingy, instead of understanding concepts like prudence, frugality, and simplicity.

Saving has nothing to do with driving around to find a gas station where diesel costs ten cents less—especially if you end up wasting another extremely valuable currency in the process: your time.

Saving has nothing to do with shopping exclusively at discount stores, buying canned food in 3-for-2 promotions, stocking up on 100 liters of beer at €0.50 per liter, or purchasing low-quality wine sold as Chianti.

Saving is the only way to consistently increase the amount of money you have available to invest.

If today you have little money, saving is the only way to build capital to invest.

If today you already have a substantial nest egg, saving is how you continue to grow the capital you can invest.

How Much Should You Save Each Month?

t won’t take long to upgrade your lifestyle (bigger house, better car, more restaurants, more clothes), and very soon you’ll find yourself in exactly the same situation.

The same applies even if you earn €20,000–€30,000 a month.

I earn a lot, and I’ve been earning a lot for a long time.
And I can assure you that until I immediately changed my mindset—something I’m about to explain—I struggled to save as well.

Because if, at the end of the month, after paying my expenses, I had money left:

• I booked a trip;
• I bought a new pair of shoes;
• I treated myself to a new tech gadget;
• I bought a good bottle of wine for the cellar.

Has this ever happened to you?
Does any of this sound familiar?

Take the classic example of actors or professional athletes.

You can’t exactly say they earn little.

Yet very often they lack financial planning.

A one-million-euro annual salary?
They spend €1.2 million—maybe thanks to a few loans.

When their career ends, problems begin.

The mindset shift you must make immediately is this:

Saving must be planned—no exceptions.

Saving is not “something poor people do.”

I don’t know who spread that idea.

Especially because, as we’ve seen, it’s not about saving 100% of your income.

There are minimum percentages you should aim for, depending on your monthly income.

Generally speaking, between 10% and 30%:

How to Save and Build Wealth: A Simple and Effective Strategy

Once you’ve identified the amount you want to save each month (which you can always adjust over time), I want you to do one thing today.

I want you to take action. Now.

Because saving money requires only a few simple, practical, and effective steps:

• open a new bank account (preferably with zero fees);
• do not request credit cards, debit cards, or checkbooks, do not install the app on your phone, and store the online banking access codes in an inconvenient place;
• set up an automatic recurring bank transfer to the new savings account;
• the transfer should be scheduled for the same day you receive your salary, or at most 1–2 days later;
• let your new savings account grow through consistent saving.

This simple process leverages two extremely powerful mechanisms.

1) The inertia of the recurring transfer

The automatic transfer will move, without any effort on your part, a portion of your income from your main account to your new virtual “piggy bank.”

This way, without having to make a conscious decision every single time—and without experiencing the feeling of sacrifice (“Should I save, or should I buy that new moisture-resistant designer doghouse?”)—you won’t even notice the transaction.

2) Dividing your money into different “mental accounts”

This approach aligns with the natural mental process known as mental accounting, where each pool of money has a specific purpose.

It may sound strange (and some branches of academic economics even consider it incorrect—those that unrealistically assume humans are perfectly rational, emotionless robots rather than actual people), but money is not all perceived the same way.

€1,000 readily available in a checking account—where you always have a credit card in your pocket (or worse, banking apps on your phone allowing one-tap payments)—is not the same as €1,000 semi-locked in a savings account that you deliberately opened to build an emergency fund or a future goals fund.

Once this system is in place, you no longer need to think about saving.

Your money will be transferred automatically, month after month, from your present self to your future self.

All you need to do is plan and manage your monthly expenses based on what remains after you’ve saved.

What truly matters, though, is that you take this action today.
Better yet: right now.

Don’t make excuses.

Don’t say you’ll do it later, next month, when you get a raise, if, maybe, someday…

To recap:

• open a new browser tab;
• open a dedicated savings account (if you don’t already have one);
• set up an automatic monthly transfer from your main account.

That’s it.

This operation is simple, involves no risk, and yet it can completely change your financial future.

In this article, I’ve explained the only truly effective way to save and accumulate money—so you can properly prepare yourself to invest and grow your wealth over time.

Giving up a little today to have much more tomorrow, instead of spending everything today and ending up with nothing tomorrow.

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