It’s easy for us to spend the money we’ve worked hard for and splash out on whatever we want, not thinking or worrying about a thing. The future, for some, seems so far away but in reality, it’ll come round closer than you think. There’s no better time to think about it than now.

Saving money is one of the hardest things we have to do. It can be a difficult task to figure out the simple ways to save and how to use your savings to pursue your financial goals. We’ve put together some simple, yet effective ways you can save for your future.

Save and invest

You should think about the money you’re saving falling into three categories:

• Emergency funds
• Short term purchases
• Long time goals

Money for emergencies and short term purchases should be kept in an easily accessible savings account. This way you may earn some interest on them too. Money for long term goals can be invested into asset such as stocks, bonds and other funds. This poses more risk than traditional savings as you have the potential to earn more from them.

Savings goals

From today and your next salary payment, a lot can change. You could lose your job, get a pay rise or fall ill. So strategizing how much money we make now in order to plan for our future is one of the best things we can do with our well-earned money. It’s simply just about a break from one pay cheque to the other and allowing for those big purchases along the way. Anyone able to create themselves a budget and follow it will be able to make goals and reach them.

Your savings goal can be anything from a new car, house or even, later in life, preparing and planning your funeral. To budget accordingly, you can compare funeral prices, browse online for the right car and pick the perfect house to have a family in.

After your expenses or income, your goals will have the biggest impact on how you plan to save your money. Try to remember your long-term goals too, as it’s important that your long-term goals don’t take a backseat to your short-term ones. Prioritise your goals and it will give you a clear idea of where you should start saving first.

Retirement savings

Regardless of your age, you can start planning for retirement at any time. It’s important to save today and save consistently to enable you to have a happy and comfortable retirement plan. There are many different options to save for retirement and ways to do so, including employee retirement savings plan or pension schemes. Using a retirement calculator is an another good way to examine your needs.

Automate your savings

Automate your savings so that once the money goes in, it stays. If you wait until the end of the month to save, the likelihood is that there will be much left to save will be slim. Make it automatic and save when you first get paid. If you have a few saving objectives, you can track the money that you are putting into each account. Put it through one account, or use a few to save for each goal. Once you see a savings growth, you’re more than likely to keep it in there.

At the end of the day, the above strategies will help you stick to a budget and save for your goals but, remember, without a plan, it’s just a thought. Write them down, make it happen.