Do I put aside my salary for savings each month? I do, although I don't really have an amount set out in mind.
It's not that I like saving, it's just that I don't like spending money. I'm not a shopaholic. During my US trip to New York last year, I bought only 1 polo t-shirt. That's right. ONE t-shirt. Had some problems even when deciding to buy it because it's not that I can't get it in Singapore.
Recently during reservist in-camp training, a friend said that everyone can be a millionaire if they save on their $2000 per month salary. After deducting $500 for utilities and stuff, that's about $1500 per month of savings. That would take 55 years to make you a millionaire. Of course, your salary might increase overtime to give you a savings of $2500 per month, that will make it 33 years.
Technically speaking, you can be a millionaire. The variables here are time and salary. Saving money is much more easy than making money. If you have a dollar, you can save. But before that, you'll have to make that dollar. You cannot save money without first making it. Therefore, saving money is less important to making you rich, relative to making money.
Then you have to take care to earn more than you spend. The super rich make more than they can spend.
Rather than taking the slow way to become a millionaire, through savings, I would rather take the supposedly faster way of finding ways to increase my income.
Also, a rich person has the skills necessary to become rich. It's important to have that skill. It also goes in line with my thinking that it's not what you have, but what you do. If you're a poor guy with great business sense, you'll be rich in the future even if you're poor now and have nothing.
I wonder what will I think of this post in the future when I'm reading this.