Top tips for how to save for a big purchase

Shannon McLay, CEO of The Financial Gym, joins TheStreet to share her tips on how to start saving for a big purchase.

Transcript

00:00What are your tips on saving for a major purchase like a house or a car?

00:04Yeah, I think the first thing is don't be scared about the big numbers

00:08because I think it's something greater than 70 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

00:13So the thought of saving up a hundred thousand dollars to buy a home feels like,

00:17forget it, like why even start? And I always say, you know, the process to get financially healthy,

00:22as you can imagine, Conway, we love fitness analogies here. So I always say the process

00:26of getting financially healthy is like running a marathon. So if you decide to run a marathon

00:30today, you're not going to run 20 plus miles today. You're going to do training, you're going

00:34to do a little bit at a time, and then you're going to build up. And at some point you'll run

00:38a little bit, you'll take a break, you run a little bit more. And so, you know, I'd say,

00:42again, back to the mindset is realize it's a big goal. Buying a house, starting a business,

00:47having children, those are all big money goals. And when you start to lay out the numbers,

00:51it could freak people out. So I'd say first realize that, you know, it's going to take time

00:56in a process. Know what the number is though, because we need to know what we're working

01:00towards. Smart goals are everything. So we need to know how much the house costs, how much the

01:05business will cost, how much retirement will cost, and then start putting the pieces together

01:09to get to those numbers.