If your budget and savings isn’t enough to get you by, you can always make more money.  This is easier said than done, but it’s not impossible.  You just have to find ways to bring in a little extra income.

You can always get another job, or get a first job if you don’t have one already.  This is pretty foolproof.  If you do the work and don’t get fired, they will most likely pay you.

You can also make money by starting a side business.  This can be anything from landscaping or babysitting or making an online business.  You can learn how to make money with adsense or write content for other people.  All you have to do is do or make something that people will be willing to pay you for.

You could aslo make more money at your current job by asking for a raise or you can go back to school and get a better career or just change to a better job.  Whatever works for you, do it.  If you don’t take action, you won’t make a penny more.

You have a few options.  It depends on what you are willing to give up and what you want.  If your goal is a couple years away and you want to save a lot of money each month, you’re going to need to take more drastic measures than if you had more time and only needed a small amount of savings each month.

If the amount you need to save each month is the same amount as how much leftover you have to invest, you should try to cut back on other expenses as well, especially if the investing is your only savings for retirement.

For example, let’s say you bring in $4,000 a month.  $3,000 is spent on bills, food, etc., $100 goes towards your kids’ college fund, and the remaining $900 goes to investing.  You want to save $24,000 in 2 years towards a new car which means you’ll need to save $1,000 a month.  If you have a 401K where you’re contributing 5 to 10 percent, it would probably be okay to use the whole $900 and then cut expense by $100.

If you don’t have a retirement account and the $900 to investment is your retirement, cut it down to maybe $500 or so and cut the remaining $500 from expenses.  If this is still unreasonable, consider buying cheaper car or waiting longer to buy a car.

It’s really all about fitting everything in.  You just have to mess around with your budget and goals for a while.  Obviously, the more money you make, the easier it is, but that’s not always plausible.  Think about it and try to cut here and there without sacrificing too much.

Most people will be tempted to just cut down the investment money, but that would be robbing from your future.  Keep in mind that you will need to have some source of income when you retire in order to sustain yourself.