When we set out to save money, often it seems like a much harder task than it really needs to be. After all, it can be quite intimidating if you’re trying to put together $1 million. If you break that down to daily chunks and figure in the magic of compounding interest, though, you will see that it’s a much easier task than it seems at first blush.

Let’s take a look at some of the things you can do to get to that big number you started thinking about. How about that $3.00 Starbucks coffee you stop and purchase 300 times a year (come on, be honest with yourself). If you put that away in the stock market, earning an average of 8% interest annually, in 20 years you would have $44,480.63. Got 30 years? How about $110,111.28?! Expensive coffee, eh? If you really feel that you need to have coffee in the morning, make it yourself and use a cheaper brand. It’s better to keep the money yourself than to give it Starbucks shareholders. Perhaps you could even buy some Starbucks stock yourself, so that you can take advantage of those not quite as wise as yourself!

Another great place to add to your savings fun is by cutting out that five-day-a week lunch with the guys at work. If you just cut one day a week at an average of $13 per lunch, you would find yourself with an extra $676 per year to invest in your future. To drive it home, let’s add that to the $900 coffee savings and see where we wind up. 20 years: $66,819.79; 30 years: $165,411.61. How much is that lunch out worth to you?

The number of ways and places you can find money to invest is virtually unlimited, if you think about it. For instance, how many times have you found money in the pockets of your clothes when doing the laundry? Set it aside. How much loose change accumulates around your house, which you generally use in the vending machines for snacks at work? Don’t. Get snacks at the grocery store and bring them with you. Use the rest of the money for your investment funds. Conservatively, the average person could put another $500 per year away in investments, just from identifying little sources of extra funds such as these.

Once again, let’s add that to the numbers above and see what we get. So, we now have a total of $1852 per year to invest, using money that we won’t even miss. Invested into the stock market at 8% per year, compounded annually, we get $91,531.25 in 20 years. In 30 years, we have $226,584.55! Not too shabby, eh?

Remember, this is money that we saved from making changes in our lives that will be literally transparent. If we pulled the belt just a bit tighter, it would not be too difficult to double and triple the amount of money we have to invest. So, what you really have to ask yourself is: is that coffee every morning and the lunches out worth a quarter of a million dollars to you?