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Over the past few years, I have been saving money each month, not for any particular reason like for example to buy a house, but just in case something big went wrong. They call self-insurance, where you are protecting yourself from some future potential hazard. In this article I write about the benefits of doing this and about my own personal experiences, i.e how hard or easy it has been saving in this way.

I am not involved within this “savings or investments industry” and am therefore not attempting to sell you anything via this article. I just writing about the ways in which I have benefited from saving money each and every month. In life you never really know when something is going to go wrong, for example your car breaking down, the washing machine packing up or the need for some improvements to your house. By saving in the way that I know do makes these issues far less stressful to deal with as I have the funds readily available to remedy the situation. I am actually involved in various fields including offering stuttering information, business cost reduction advice and helping people to learn how to play the guitar.

Maybe I am being paranoid but I always seemed to have far less money than what my friends had. Four years ago a group of us went to Spain for a two-week holiday. I will never forget the moment when one of my friends asked how much money each of us were taking on the holiday. We all answered one by one and to my horror not only did I have the least amount but I had around two hundred pounds less than the next lowest person. It was not because I was being tight, it was because I did not have anymore. At the time I had even found it very hard to save up this amount of money; looking back I feel quite ashamed at my lack of discipline at the time - I just used to waste so much money.

When I arrived back from this holiday I decided that I needed to change my attitude on financial matters. I read a few books and spoke to a number of people about the best way for me to move forward. I did not want to have to struggle next year if there is to be another holiday for example.

I believed the answer was to start saving an amount every month which would leave my account via direct debit. I was the type of person who would basically spend whatever I had or earned. If it was in the bank therefore I would spend it. It was to leave my account via direct debit I would have no way of course to spend it.

I set up one of these savings policies and started it a modest £30 a month. I am very pleased to say that it did not exactly have a major negative impact on my social life. The policy itself was in some way linked to the stock market and this itself was quite exciting, sad I know. After a year I received a statement through the post and I was quite happy to see that I was actually worth something for a change. I then decided to increase the amount that I was going to save to £50 a month.

I would strongly advise other people to commence saving on a regular basis as it has certainly given me a piece of mind.