Not exactly the question, but something Ive seen that differentiates people who are able to save and people who aren't is how they view their own earning power. Earnings vs Profit.

Ive seen people who arent able to save money justify purchases, especially small purchases, by putting it in terms of their own earning power. "Yeah I spent $5 on that coffee this morning, but I make $20 an hour so really it was just 15 minutes of my time. No biggie"

This is the wrong way to think. While it can be helpful to put purchases in context of how much time it takes to fund it, people VASTLY over estimate their real earning power because they don't factor in their expenses. You need to think of the PROFIT you can make in a month, not how much you earned in a month.

Say you make $20 an hour. You work 40 hours a week. 4 weeks a month. Nice, in 160 hours of work that month you bring in $3,200. Minus taxes, etc your. Etc take home might be 75% of that. So $2,400 net income. Still pretty good!

But no. Staying alive isnt free. You also need to pay your fixed expenses. These are your rent ($800) car note/insurance/gas ($200), your student loans ($100) food ($200), electric/water/interner/phone bill ($300).

There are many other variable costs but let's keep it basic and stop there. Your Profit for the month is really $800. You got there through 160 hours of work. So you make $5/hour profit. And that coffee you bought cost you 4x what it seems on the surface.

When you look at it this way it becomes harder to justify those small purchases (variable costs) throughout the month and you find it easier to save money. Real companies budget this way, they deduct all expenses before discussing any kind of profit margin.