How To Be Successful In Your Personal Finances
Thursday, March 3, 2011, 1:34 AM | 1 Comment
There are different ways to be successful in your personal finances. You don’t have to be too frugal in your financial life. For instance, some folks concentrate too much on coupons. Coupons in general are good and you can save some money. But many consumers use coupons for something they don’t absolutely need. They would buy the item just because they have coupon for it. In the process they are likely to spend more.
When a family friend of ours goes shopping, he would buy things that are on sale. Nothing wrong with that. However, I tell him just because a shirt, for example, is on sale, he doesn’t have to buy it. Once he showed me his closet. It was full of brand new clothes in packages that he had not even opened yet. He said some of the items were brand new but he bought them more than two years ago. I think that’s a waste of money.
The same thing for coupons. Just because you have coupons does not mean you have to buy the item when you don’t need it. The mantra of my blog is “Spend less than you make and enjoy life.” If you follow this, you would never get into debt and you would be successful in your personal finances and would enjoy life more.
Consumers must look at their overall shopping behavior. They would live a more satisfied financial life as long as they don’t spend more than what they earn. It’s as simple as that. But for some folks, it can be as hard as it gets especially for Americans. They don’t think about tomorrow. If they did, many folks would not be in the debt mess they are in now.
There are some very basic tactics that you can follow to lead a more successful financial life. Don’t depart lying in that wooden casket with unnecessary debt hanging of it. Don’t leave your bad debt as your inheritance. Your spouse and kids might not be able to forgive you for it.
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Take Charge of your Finances
When I say take charge, I mean you ought to know where you stand financially and where you want to go.
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Use Credit Cards only for Convenience
Don’t use credit card to accumulate debt. Use it for convenience because you don’t want to carry a lot of cash.
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Buy with Credit Card
This advice is only for folks who are not greedy to buy everything they see on sale. They buy because they need. Make sure you can pay it all off at the first sight of your bill.
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Love at first Bite
When you receive credit card bill, you don’t have to love it. But if you are afraid to receive it, you have spent more than you could afford.
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Don’t follow Mr. & Mrs. Jones
One of the things I have noticed about folks in America is they are the best copycats in the world. None of the nations can beat them in this category. Americans are full of ingenuity but when it comes to shopping, they always follow Mr. & Mrs. Jones. Shun these two from your financial life.
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Save and Invest
Save regularly and consistently. How much? It depends. May be 10%. Even 5% is good. Leave some cash in the bank for rainy day. Invest the rest.
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Diversify
When investing, don’t put everything in one basket. Diversify.
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Pay Attention to your Retirement
Even if you are in your 20s and 30s, retirement is always around the corner. Before you know it you will be saying goodbye to your everyday place of work. I wish I had realized when I was a lot younger that I would retire one day. I would have saved and invested for retirement which I haven’t.
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Avoid Making Emotional Financial Decisions
Whether it’s buying just clothes or investing your hard-earned money, don’t make a decision on impulse. Do research.
In a Nutshell
Spend because you have needs. Everybody does. Avoid spending on impulse. Avoid spending because you want something. Spend because you need something. Don’t mix up the two concepts in your financial life.
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