Make your code more readable

Of course, you write comments with your code... But, you can also make it more readable and logical by following the CakePHP coding standards:

debug(mixed $var, boolean $showHtml = false) can make your life easier.

Give convenience wrappers like e(), low(), up() and r() a try.

Do not forget to secure your application and use Sanitize.

After saving an object, you want to read or modify it directly, but you don't know the ID. Use the getLastInsertId function.

If you want to know the contents of an array you can use the helper function pr($array); For example try pr($this->data);