If you’ve gone into 2025 with little to no emergency fund, you might have set — or might be thinking about setting — some lofty savings goals.
First of all, understand you’re not alone. According to Kashable’s State of Consumer Finance Report, 81% of Kashable customers had no emergency savings.
Check Out: 6 Things the Middle Class Should Sell To Build Their Savings
Read Next: 5 Frugal Habits Suze Orman Still Follows Even Though She Can Afford Almost Anything
Frugal living YouTuber Kate Kaden believes it’s possible to save $1,000 per month and recently shared her secrets in a video. Here are her top tips.
Also see seven things to do with your savings in 2025 to grow your wealth.
Pay Yourself First
Experts like Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman have touted the personal finance adage “Pay yourself first.” Kaden agrees and has a system to do it that she’s learned from past personal finance mistakes.
“I used to do this differently,” she said in a video. “I’d pay the bills, I’d have my fun and then with what was left over, I would save.”
She told viewers she reversed her strategy, starting with her savings, then paying her bills and, finally, treating herself with what was left over. “When you treat your savings like a bill, you protect that number,” she said.
Try This: Dave Ramsey: This Common Monthly Payment Is Costing You Millions
Build Your Budget Around Your Savings Goal
Next, you’ll want to build your budget around a specific savings goal.
You can start with the amount of money you want to save by the end of the year, broken into monthly increments. For instance, if you want to save $12,000 by the end of 2025, you’ll need to save $1,000 per month.
Or you can opt for a 50/30/20 budget, which entails allocating 20% of your total income for savings, 50% for needs and 30% for wants.
Either way, that number you set for saving is nonnegotiable. “This is unmovable if you are aggressively trying to save,” Kaden said. “You build your budget around that fact.”
Work Up to Larger Savings Amounts
One thousand dollars may sound like a daunting number to save each month, especially if you make the U.S. median salary of just $1,165 per week and/or have a large mortgage or rent payment that accounts for more than 30% of your income.
If your current savings goal can’t work with your fixed expenses or seems too restricting, you can choose a smaller number. “Once you prove to yourself … with your budget that you can do it, then you gradually increase [your savings],” Kaden said in the video.
As you start edging your nonnegotiable saving amount up over time, start analyzing your budget for more ways to cut expenses and increase the amount you save each month.
Explore Minimalism
Kaden told viewers that minimalism has changed her life. “Minimalism, to me … [is] spending your time, your money and your energy on things that bring you the most value and then eliminating or … drastically reducing the rest,” she said. “You’re left with only the things you really need and the things that you love.”
Kaden said she took 12 weeks to declutter her entire house. By doing so, you can sell the items you don’t need and boost your savings. GOBankingRates listed 22 things you can sell for extra cash, including old clothes, video games, exercise equipment and even wine corks. You might even have toys from your childhood that are worth more money than you might think.
Beyond clearing clutter and generating extra cash, adopting a minimalist lifestyle may provide a mindset shift, according to Kaden. “You don’t want to keep spending money on things that you’re going to end up getting rid of sooner than later,” she said. “It will really help you prioritize your spending and your savings.”
Take Care of Yourself and Take Responsibility for Your Finances
“No one cares about your personal finances as much as you do,” Kaden said. With this in mind, it’s important to remember that poor nutrition, lack of sleep and lack of exercise can harm your ability to practice self-control.
One study published in the National Library of Medicine found several links between poor sleep habits and a lack of self-control, which makes it harder to resist short-term pleasures to meet long-term goals. A solid diet, exercise and sleep strategy can boost your discipline to keep your eye on your ultimate goal — financial freedom.
“The choices we make with our finances are important, so that you can be taken care of … No one is going to take better care of you than you. And you’re stuck with you forever — and that’s a good thing,” she said. “So be your own best friend, respect yourself, take care of yourself and when motivation is low, you remember ‘I’ve got to do this and I can do this.'”
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: How To Save $1K a Month, According to Frugal Living YouTuber Kate Kaden
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