JohnRunchey.com

The most vital component of success in savings and eventual wealth building is controlling your outgo as compared to your income.
 
To a large extent, it truly isn't 'what you make' (income), it's 'what you keep' (income - expenses) that is important.  
 An extreme example of this is Mike Tyson. Over the span of his boxing career he made over 300 million dollars - yet he ended up filing bankruptcy, being over 27 million bucks in the hole. 
 
For us mere mortals that are earning typical incomes, managing our expenses is relatively easy if we have a little bit of discipline. It's really quite simple:

• record every dime you spend
• work on getting the total comfortably below your income so you can divert money to savings

"What, watch every penny? I just need to make more money, that's the problem!" 

I drive a reasonably shitty car. It has many miles on the odometer, 172 thousand and change to be exact. It is 13 years old, the same age as my daughter who was born oh so many years ago. When it hits a bump just so, the front end breaks into a violent oscillation, feeling as though the car is going to tear itself apart.
 
It is a reasonably shitty car. But I love it.
 
You see, this car is fully paid for. It has been fully paid for since, well since I don't know when because having payments is such a distant memory. I suppose buried deep in my records somewhere is the exact date our payments ended. 
 
Shitty is probably a bit of an overstatement. How about crappy, that sounds better.