Saving for a rainy day

Save £2 pound coins. Ok, again not really to do with being online or making money, more saving it but if you are disciplined about not spending them you'll be surprised how quickly you can save money (although the amount you save will depend entirely on how often and how much cash you spend).

If £2 is small change to you then why not try saving £20 notes. They stack up pretty quickly. Still, if you're reading this site then you're probably open to ideas about saving as well as earning money and if you need money to make an investment then you're going to have to save it first (unless you have a few grand lying around already). Then when you have a bit saved up, bung it in an ISA and get it working for you, tax free. To find the best savings accounts try The Motley Fool

Whilst you're in the mood for saving, have a read of The richest man in Babylon that has some useful tips on how to keep hold of your money and make it work for you. It really is free, there's no catch and you don't even have to say thank you!

Cash is king

If you're someone who can never work out where their money goes each month and how you manage to spend everything you earn all the time (and maybe some more on top) then here's a tip you'll find surprisingly helpful. Try paying for things in cash. You'll be surprised how much more aware you become of how much you're spending when you are using cold hard cash. Watch your wad shrink each time you spend some, rather than putting everything on plastic – you can feel your wages disappearing. You'll also be much less tempted to spend money you don't have. Just try it for a month or two and see what a difference it makes. Go on, tell Cash Ninja he's wrong.

For some more tips try signing up to this guy Lewis Geary's (real name?) newsletter. He calls it the Rich Life Letter Ok so the more astute of you will notice straight away that more often than not there are links in the email trying to sell you some thing or other that will improve your financial wellbeing. However, ignoring those, there's also a lot of handy info that can you save you money without costing you anything.

On the other hand Martin Lewis offers a site and a newsletter that are free to use and free of ads and at a cursory glance look fairly handy.