That means no cable television (or, if that's too much to ask, consider reducing back to basic service); no more $4 cups of coffee (develop a taste for home brewed, or cheaper still, instant), no instant messaging service (or cap your cost). If you're still smoking, STOP IMMEDIATELY! There is nothing dumber than spending your hard-earned cash on a habit that will kill you.

Write down your daily expenses -- everything you buy, from gas to coffee to phone bill -- and keep track of them for several months. Tracking what you actually spend, in detail, is just as important as creating a budget. You need to understand where the money is going before you can create a budget that will enable you to meet your obligations and also save.

When you do create your budget, make sure to have a line item for savings. This means you sock away what you can every month as part of your budget.

If you are serious about wealth accumulation and do not have much knowledge about the subject, the first action to take, even before you accumulate your first $10K, is to start educating yourself. BloggingStocks is a great place to start, and there is no dearth of others. MSN, Yahoo! and Google all have financial pages. The billionaire value investor Warren Buffett learned plenty from Benjamin Graham, so reading the classic book, "The Intelligent Investor" would be a smart first move for the novice.

Inexpensive subscriptions to Money Magazine, and Smart Money have a lot of basic information for beginning investors. Fortune and Forbes are a level higher. My favorite is Barron's (subscription required), but that might be too much at the beginning.

Some additional online sites worth a gander include: MotleyFool.com, theStreet.com, Marketwatch.com ... and hundreds of others. Every investment and brokerage house can also provide valuable insights.

It has been said that investing is not about timing the market, but time in the market. You can't get into the stock market without some capital. The time to start saving is now. Open a savings account. Open a checking account. Open a no-load mutual fund account and start a Roth IRA.

Step-by-step

1. Educate yourself by reading everything you can get your hands on.
2. Track all of your expenses.
3. Cut your expenses and become a saver immediately.
4. Pay off debt. (You can even call your credit card company and tell them to reduce your interest rates or you'll change companies. Every time I have done this my rates were reduced.) If you are carrying a large balance you are a better customer then I am.
5. Establish a budget with a line item for savings.
6. Open savings and checking accounts and establish a banking relationship.
7. Investigate mutual fund companies and open a Roth IRA (even if you cannot contribute very much).

Happy Holidays

Interested in reading more? Check out my other posts for Blogging Stocks here.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for Design and Research of an architecture & planning firm.