Teaching Tip:  One good way to present this material is to show the Wall Street Journal video “Saving $10,000” in class (which is about 3 minutes long) and then open up a class discussion, follow that with a written assignment based upon the Wall Street Journal article “How to Save $10,000 by Next Thanksgiving.” 

In Chapter 2 we looked at the process of developing a cash budget – there we identified variable expenditures, that is, expenses over which you have complete control.  It’s the variable expenditures that can be reduced, and when you do that you’re saving money.  But we all know saving money is tough – if it wasn’t we’d all have a big stash of money in the bank.  Cutting down on this and that helps, but in the end it’s tough to make much progress, so how can you do it? Recently The Wall Street Journal took a look at the question of how to save money and came up a number of suggestions in the article “How to Save $10,000 by Next Thanksgiving.”  In addition, there is a short video, “Saving $10,000,” that covers a couple of the items suggested in the article.

So often in personal finance the steps needed to save a substantial sum of money are so painful that most people simply walk away.  The tips and suggestions in this article are quite reasonable, and while you might not be able to use them all, there are certainly some in there that you can put into practice.

Class Discussion:

1. Read the Wall Street Journal article “How to Save $10,000 by Next Thanksgiving” and pick the items that (1) you, and (2) your parents, could implement.  Be prepared to discuss this in class.  Teaching Tip:  This could also be presented as a written assignment.
2. Come up with one additional way to save money and estimate how much you could save in one year.  Be prepared to discuss this in class.  Teaching Tip:  This could also be presented as a written assignment.