Pay Yourself First

I know we all have bills, etc but as hard as we work for our money shouldn't we be paying ourselves also. To get in the habit of saving some money every mont, take a predetermined percentage of your paycheck and put it in a saving account (start with 5-10%). Keep building that account until you have enough to move it into a mutual fund or downpayment for a house, if you do not own one.
The simplest way to implement the pay yourself first plan is to make it "automatic". Set up so a percentage of your paycheck is automatically deducted and intested as you direct. If you don't have to think about it you won't be able to come up with excuses why you can't save it. After awhile you will get used to not having that extra money to spend. I think of my savings allocation as a bill just like every other bill. I figure it in what I have to spend that month and adjust other spending to allow for that. One of the books I have read and recommend on this subject is The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich, by David Bach.
You make sure you have money to pay others, shouldn't you also pay yourself?