Don’t try to change every aspect of your financial behavior all at once. It can be overwhelming to try to completely change too many behaviors all at once, and that can make it difficult for any of those changes to stick.

Here is some straightforward banking advice, along with concrete steps you can take, in order to curb your spending and increase your savings.

• Track Your Current Spending. In order to cut back on your spending, you need to have an understanding of what you’re buying and how much you’re spending. There are many different tools and techniques you can use to track your spending, ranging from a simple pen and notebook to full-featured software applications you can run on your laptop or smartphone. The actual tool doesn’t matter so much as using it effectively and consistently. After a month or two of diligent record-keeping, you should be able to easily identify areas of your spending habits that you can reduce.
• Make Saving Automatic. Once you’ve identified how you’re going to curb your spending and free up more cash for savings, you need to take that final step and actually save that cash. While it’s certainly possible to just “play it by ear” and save whatever you happen to have available at the end of each month, it’s better to make your savings happen automatically. If you don’t use direct deposit for your paycheck, sign up as soon as you can. You can usually specify that your paycheck be divided between multiple accounts, so use this to have a percentage of your income automatically deposited into one of your savings or investment accounts.
• Don’t Tempt Yourself. If you find that you’re often in situations where you’re extremely tempted to spend, it might be worth trying to change your habits in a way that keeps you out of those situations. For example, if you go out with friends several times a week to happy hour, and find that you’re spending too much money each time you go, then consider cutting back on how often you go out. Similarly, if you have a habit of going to the mall just to “window shop” every weekend, but then usually end up buying something, then find another activity to do instead.

The hardest part of curbing your spending and increasing your savings is taking the first step. Start with a new behavior that’s relatively small and easy to change, and build from there, so that you’ll give yourself the best chance of succeeding in the long run.

If there’s any downside to being on a regular savings program, it’s that sometimes we get so used to saving a certain amount each month we aren’t necessarily saving as much as we could be. In fact, regardless of the financial situation you find yourself in, it’s quite likely that you’ll be able to save an additional $50 per week without significantly changing your lifestyle.

Here are some tips on how to reach that incremental $50 per week saving goal, which will result in over $2,500 in a year!

By taking a few of these steps you’ll be able to save an extra $50 per week. It might take a bit of effort to build up to it, and to add these new behaviors to your normal routine, but once you have the habits in place it will seem much easier, and at the end of the year you’ll have saved over $2,500.

Recently passed laws have made it significantly more difficult for a college student to get a credit card on their own, unless they’re able to demonstrate an independent and adequate income. You may decide to help your child obtain their first card, but first you need to decide whether your college age student should have a credit card.

Here’s some banking advice to consider on whether your college age student should have credit card.

New college students will face a lot of new things, and one of them will be a new level of financial responsibility. If it makes sense for your student (and for you), then a credit card might be just the thing to help them grow.

The answer to the question will vary for each child, of course. But there are some factors you can take into consideration when trying to decide that age for your child.

Teaching a child how to save money will give them a valuable life lesson. Your child may be ready for a savings account when one or more of the following things are true.

If none of these things happen by the time your child reaches second or third grade, you might consider opening a savings account anyway. Sometimes, when a child has a savings account, the account itself becomes the catalyst for them to start learning more about money.

Thankfully, there are ways to cut the amount you spend on gasoline each week without having to significantly change your lifestyle. You’d save a lot of money by getting rid of your car, of course, but that’s not going to be a realistic option for many people.

Here’s some money saving advice and suggestions on how to save money on gasoline.

By paying a little more attention to where you buy your gas, and how you pay for it, you’ll be able to reduce what you spend each month on gas and put that money to better work.

Today there are an increasing number of ways that we need to be vigilant in protecting our financial information. For example, as more of us access our banking, checking and brokerage accounts through our smart phones and other mobile devices, we need to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to keep those mobile banking transactions safe.

Here is some banking advice on how to ensure that your use of mobile banking is safe.

Mobile banking can be safe, but you need to do your part to make it so. Follow the guidelines above to help keep your financial accounts secure.

For example, you can use general personal finance principles to help you save for an expensive purchase. What the item is doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you go about saving for it.

Here is some banking advice and guidance for helping you to save in order to afford that expensive purchase.

If you’re honest with your situation and stick to your more important long-term financial goals, then you should be able to save up enough to make that expensive purchase.

Trying to figure out the best way to meet your financial goals can be difficult (if not impossible) if you don’t know where you are now. One effective way of coming up with a baseline for your current financial position is to calculate your personal “cash flow.” While the term might sound a bit intimidating, particularly if you’ve never considered your cash flow before, it’s actually a fairly straightforward calculation, and an essential part of budgeting your money.

Here’s some banking advice about how to calculate cash flow.

One of the most dangerous factors in managing your own personal finances is ignorance. By learning more about how you make and spend money, you’ll be able to better improve your financial position. A basic cash flow analysis can be a significant part of that learning process and extremely helpful in budgeting.

Even many personal budgeting tasks can now be done with the iPhone. In fact, some individuals are finding that because they usually have their iPhone with them at all times it’s easier than ever to create budgets and track those budgets. Much of the initial resistance that many people encounter with following a budget has to do with actually getting that budget up and running.

Here’s some straightforward banking advice on how to use your iPhone to bridge that challenge and set up a budget.

If you have an iPhone then you’ve already got most of what you need to create a budget for your personal finances. The next step is to find the app that best fits your needs, and to get in the habit of using it.

Keep in mind that your bank can change the terms of your checking account upon 30 days advance notice. So when you receive a letter from your bank, review it carefully to make sure that you won’t be subject to any unexpected new fees going forward.

Here are some common new fees that banks have been instituting on their checking accounts.

The personal banking landscape is changing. We can no longer assume that banks are in such competition for our business that they’re willing to provide a broad range of services at no direct cost to us. Now is the time to become more educated about what your bank currently charges you, and whether any better alternatives exist.