We tend to overlook the power of small steps. We want a magic bullet to somehow make us thinner, richer and more successful. But much of life is simply putting one foot in front of the other in the direction we want to go. If your financial goals seem out of reach, consider what you could do with just $5 a day.

If you could find $5 a day to save instead of spend, by the end of the month you would have $150. By the end of the year, you could have saved $1,800 toward an emergency fund or expenses that would have otherwise gone on your credit card.

If you used your $150 to contribute to your company retirement savings plan, and your employer matches your contribution, you could turn it into $300 a month just like that. In a year you would have contributed a total of $3,600 toward retirement.

A recent CNBC article highlights a survey done by Creditcards.com. In it they found 42 percent of those aged 18 to 37 don’t know when or if they will ever be able to pay off their debt, and 20 percent expect to die with it. The average non-mortgage debt was $36,000.

You could use your $150 to make an extra payment on your debt. If you add $150 to the current minimum payment and make the same payment every month going forward, you could have $36,000 of debt completely paid off in as little as three years, depending on your interest rate. Of course that assumes you stop adding to it.

Once your debt is gone, instead of making payments on it, you could work toward your other financial goals, like saving more for retirement, saving for your children’s education and other things that are important to you. If your $36,000 of debt is credit card debt, the minimum payment is over $800. With your extra payment, it’s $950. That is a lot of money that could be going toward all your other goals.

Where could you find $5? Most of us spend money on things that aren’t important to us. Did you eat take out lunch at your desk? If so, you probably don’t even remember what you had, and you could have saved $5 by bringing your lunch from home.

You might be able to shave $5 a day, or $35 a week, from your grocery bill by changing the store where you shop or shopping more carefully so you have less food waste. There might be a combination of things you could do, like changing your phone plan, getting rid of the gym membership you don’t use, and turning down the heat when you aren’t home.

It doesn’t seem like much money. Just $5 a day. But the impact can be so powerful. You can have more financial security and your big financial goals are within reach. You only have to take the first step, even if its a small one. Whatever you do is progress, and you may be able to do more in the future. It may not be a magic bullet, but it will do the trick.

Save Yourself; Your Guide to Saving for Retirement and Building Financial Security, is available on Amazon.

Header photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash