Gas prices are at $4.00 or more a gallon in most places, and the cost of groceries are increasing much faster than inflation. People everywhere are feeling the financial pressures of today's economy, and for most, the thought of saving money is a distant one. When times are tough, saving money can be difficult. Even if you're living paycheck to paycheck, there are ways you can save if you follow a few simple rules

Start Small

Saving money is a marathon, not a sprint. If you want to save up $1,000, it is much easier to accomplish that goal in a year compared to two months. In order to put your savings plan to work, the key is to start small. Can you find a way to save $5 each week? Think about it--five dollars a week is less than a lot of fast food value meals or even a few fancy coffees. Five dollars could be shaved off of each weekly grocery bill by buying a few things on sale or buying store brands. When you start with a small amount, you can find ways to save, and it adds up over time.

So, saving five dollars a week doesn't sound like much, but that's okay. If you saved just the five dollars a week for a year, you'd have $260, less any interest. If you're married and your spouse does the same, you will have amassed over $500 painlessly. But the idea isn't to start small and stay small. You may start at five dollars a week, but once a few weeks or a month goes by and you're used to saving that money, bump it up to $7 or even $10 each week. If you could live without five extra dollars, you could probably find you can get by without seven dollars just as easily.

These small incremental weekly increases will gradually change your spending habits so that you become accustomed to how much money you have available, and before you know it, you're stashing away a nice amount of money.

Make Saving Automatic

You've heard it before, but to make saving work, you need to pay yourself first. If you wait until all the bills are paid, groceries bought, and money otherwise spent before seeing what is left over at the end of the week, you'll always come up empty. The key to saving is to treat your savings as a bill. You find a way to pay the phone bill each month, don't you? Well, think of your weekly or monthly savings as a bill that has to be paid, and pay it before it gets spent on frivolous things.

To make sure you pay yourself first, you need to create an automatic savings plan. This is best accomplished by setting up direct deposit with your paychecks so that a little bit goes into savings on the day you get paid. That way, on payday you don't have to worry about making a deposit yourself, and you have already put that savings out of sight and out of mind.

If you don't have direct deposit set up, you can always create an automatic transfer between accounts with your bank. You can schedule a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly automatic transfer that moves money from your checking to savings. If you don't have to think about it, it's much more likely to get done.