Not all that long ago, I had quite a bit of debt and virtually no savings, aside from a couple of meager retirement accounts. Now, my net worth has flipped solidly positive, I’m debt-free aside from my mortgage, and I’m stashing away a lot of money for my future. Below, I discuss some of the saving strategies I used to get to where I am today.

I’m not going to tell you that if I can do it, so can you. The fact is that I have a fairly high salary for the area where I live, and my income has grown slowly but steadily over the past five years. I also got married five years ago, and splitting the bills with someone makes my income go farther. (That said, we’ve now added two kids to the equation, and there’s no question that kids are expensive.) Not everyone has the same kind of budgetary wiggle-room that I do, and for some, saving is a genuine struggle due to circumstances beyond their control.

Your financial picture may look very different from mine. But my hope is that telling you what’s worked for me might inspire you to look for ways to tweak your finances. Maybe you’ll discover that things which once seemed out of reach could actually be attainable. Don’t be afraid to start small. Even if you can only stash away five or ten dollars a week, that will at least put you on the path to building an emergency fund. Having some savings can protect you against future financial crises and keep you from relying on debt.

The biggest factor that set me on this journey to saving a bunch of money was having a motivating “why.” Saving more money began to seem possible when my final student loan payment was within view. But as someone who had never saved much money, saving for the mere sake of building wealth wasn’t that compelling to me.

Around the same time I paid off my debt, I developed a clear vision of the kind of law I ultimately wanted to practice, and I began to think about going out on my own. I knew I’d need a lot of money to do it. So I started doing some very rough calculations to see what would be possible. How much would I need to save to cover a year’s worth of personal and business expenses? If I wanted to get there in five years, how much would I have to save each month? What if I wanted to get there in three years? What if I really trimmed down my expenses to the bare essentials — then how much would I need to have?

Next, I came up with a ballpark number that I thought I could comfortably set aside each month. This was largely based on how much I’d been paying toward my debts. Since I’d already been living without that money, saving it seemed completely doable. I did not get very granular or detailed when I first picked a monthly savings target. I figured I’d just start with what I knew I could do and then ratchet the number up from there if I found that I could.

Automation has been key for me. I have various accounts designated for various purposes, and I’ve set up recurring automated transfers so that every two weeks when my paycheck hits, deposits are automatically made into those accounts. My weekly pay goes into an account at one bank, and about half of it is immediately withdrawn and redirected to several accounts at two other financial institutions. I don’t even think about spending the money that I’m saving for my future self-employment plans, because it’s in a separate account at a separate bank that I’ve told myself is off-limits.

I’m basically doing what many financial experts advise and paying myself first. The same can be said of the pre-tax payroll deductions I’ve set up through my employer. Before my paycheck ever hits my bank account, money is withheld to fund my retirement account, healthcare flexible spending account, and dependent care reimbursement account. I only have to decide to make those contributions once a year, and making them is mostly a no-brainer. I live off of what’s left after these accounts and my other savings accounts have been funded for the pay cycle.

Because I wasn’t very detailed in my initial savings calculations, I’ve had to make some adjustments to my budgeting from time to time. Early on, this occasionally meant backing off my savings slightly when I’d been a little too ambitious, so that I had enough to cover day-to-day expenses. Sometimes it means increasing the amount I’m saving when I get a raise, or tinkering with budgeted amounts to account for specific increased costs. For instance, if rising healthcare premiums mean that my paycheck becomes a little smaller, then I might reduce the amount I budget for clothes or eating out. At this point, I do whatever I can to avoid reducing my monthly savings amount.

At first, I didn’t track my spending very carefully. I had monthly budgeted amounts for different categories of spending, and I’d just mentally try to stay within that budget when making purchases. I use credit cards to pay for most things so that I can take advantage of cash-back rewards and so that my money can earn interest for a little longer before I part with it (although given current interest rates, the latter factor is of minimal importance). The credit card balances get paid in full every month to avoid accruing interest.

There were a few months when I spent too haphazardly and came closer than I’d prefer to having to dip into my self-employment savings to cover the monthly credit card balances. That led me to track my spending a little more carefully.

Currently, I set myself a daily dollar amount for discretionary spending. I put all of my discretionary purchases into a spreadsheet as I make them, and I constrain myself to spending no more than that daily amount on average for each month. In other words, if my daily amount were $10, then I would not allow myself to spend more than $300 in a 30-day month on unnecessary expenditures. I might allow myself to exceed the daily budgeted amount on occasion (sometimes that’s inevitable), but I constrain myself to the monthly limit. This system really makes me think about every spare dollar I spend. I often find myself asking, “Is this worth the money?”

I check my savings and investment account balances almost daily. In addition, I use Mint to aggregate my accounts so that I can see trends over time with respect to income, spending, and net worth. I find these numbers very motivating. Watching my account balances grow — and seeing that growth accelerate — builds momentum. The more I save, the more I want to save.

Over time, I’ve come up with creative and painless ways to cut my expenses, like reducing my cell phone bill (shout out to Mint Mobile) and using my library’s app to listen to free audiobooks rather than paying for Audible or cable. I also use high-yield savings accounts (a bit of a misnomer right now), CDs, and conservative investment vehicles to grow my savings as much as I can while still protecting it from market downturns, since I know I’ll need the money fairly soon. (I’m simultaneously saving for retirement and my young kids’ college educations; those funds are invested much more aggressively because of the longer time horizons.)

Following personal finance influencers and thought leaders helps to keep me motivated and on track. I love Farnoosh Torabi, Paula Pant, and Jean Chatzky, to name a few. I’ve learned a lot about money management and investment strategies, and it’s a topic I genuinely enjoy now. Hearing about other peoples’ tricks, inventive solutions, and successes helps my goals seem totally within reach.

I hope this provides a helpful overview and a bit of inspiration. Personal finance doesn’t have to be intimidating, and big saving goals don’t have to be daunting. Being knowledgeable and intentional about money is truly empowering.

While I’m by no means a financial advisor, I’m happy to answer any questions you may have. I’d also love to hear what works for you, so please leave a comment or send me an email.

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