As a mom, it’s important to not only be concerned about your kids’ future but your own as well. After all, if you can’t make sure that you’re financially secure in your future, then you’re more likely to become more dependent on your kids than most parents would like. For that reason, we’re going to take a look at ways to secure yourself a financial future you can really rely on.

Start paying yourself first

The first thing you want to do is make sure that you’re actually putting money towards your future. You can’t build your wealth if your money is all spent, after all. To make sure that you don’t spend every penny of your paycheck soon after it comes in, you should follow the pay yourself first rule. Essentially, this means putting together a budget, figuring how much of your income you’re going to put towards your financial goal, and taking it out of your account as soon as you can so you can’t touch it, whether you put it in a savings account or put it directly to your financial goals immediately. Automate it, if you need too.

Pin down the security you need

Make sure that your money is taking care of your essentials, first and foremost. The tips following will help improve the quality of your retirement, but it’s important to ensure that you have one, to begin with. Make sure you’re contributing the maximum amount you can to any retirement account that is also having contributions met by an employer, for instance. Consider looking at income insurance to make sure that if you have to stop working early for any reason, your funds aren’t going to get cut off.

Get into investing

One of the most important tips you can learn is that if you really want to start building wealth, you can’t work for it all the time. People who get enough riches to experience real social mobility rarely do so by working for them. Instead, they get their money working for them. The single best way to do that is to get into investing. Not only can investments result in an exponential increase to your value over time, but there are plenty that offers dividends, too, allowing you to get some form of income from them.

Make use of the right savings accounts

By comparison, savings accounts are never likely to net you the same level of gains as a good investment portfolio will do. However, they are low-risk by comparison. As such, it can be a good strategy to diversify and have some of your money in the markets with the chance of leading to serious gains over time and to have more of your money in the best savings accounts, building interest slowly for you.

The simple best piece of advice one can give is to start saving and investing as soon as possible. The earlier you get into the habit, the easier it is to keep up as time goes on. Furthermore, your gains can start compounding all the sooner, too.