You know the ritual. January 1st happens, and you are on it. You hit the gym, you create a budget. This is going to be the year you keep your resolution. But after a month, heck maybe even after 2 weeks, you can’t find time for the gym or to track your spending. I think New Years Resolutions are a great idea, but only if you stick to them, here’s some tricks I’ve learned.
Education
Paying Back Student Loans is Like Firefighting
Perhaps you are looking down the barrel of a student loan. You did what you needed to do for your college education, but now you have a debt of $10k, $50k, $100k, or even $200k or more. These are one of the only types of loans that can’t get cleared in a bankruptcy, so this is often a millstone around your neck for life. Especially in this current job market, you may be making just $20k out of school, and that $100k loan looks literally impossible to pay off.
Staying in Budget for Christmas
Christmas is a tough time of year on the budget. If you haven’t planned throughout the year, it’s very easy to get into debt in order to make everyone on your shopping list happy. How can this be avoided?
Snatch That Match – Employer Contributions to Retirement
Have you ever met anyone that turned down free money? If you came into work today and your boss told you he’d give you an extra 4% of your salary, no strings attached, would you turn him down?
Preparing Financially for a Natural Disaster
Hurricane Sandy caught a lot of people by surprise. The New York area isn’t exactly known for getting massive hurricanes, so most residents were not as prepared for such a disaster. While there are lots of things you can do to be physically prepared for natural disaster (Bottled water, generators, etc ), something that is not often mentioned is how you can be financially prepared.
Buying Used – Gaining an Appreciation for Broken-in Items
Buying everything new is something relatively new to this world. Thanks to globalization, we can buy a brand new shirt from Target for $5. Now that we don’t have to sew it by hand, this has gotten us used to buying new as the default.
Expenses to Avoid at All Costs
If you’re in debt right now, it’s nothing to be embarrassed of.
Over half of all Americans have some revolving credit debt (i.e. not counting mortgages and student loans), and 10% have 10k or more in credit card debt. Unfortunately, it’s actually much more expensive to be a low income member of our society then a high income one. Ironically, people with lots of money get free checking, refunded ATM fees, better interest rates. If you are working class individual, all of these things cost considerably more, which makes it very hard to get ahead of the eight ball. That said, there are some things that will really compound the problem and should be avoided at all costs.
Managing Your Electric Bill
Some parts of our budget we can choose to do without, like new clothes, or eating out. Others, we have to pay but can’t change the amount, like rent or a car payment. But there is a third type of expense that we can get better control over to balance our budgets, our electric bill.
This Is Why You Shouldn’t Have Nice Things
One of the biggest traps people get into when they start making a little money is buying into the idea of luxury. “Hey, I work hard for my money, I deserve nice things.” We’re surrounded by advertising, co-workers, entertainment, etc.. that tells us we should aspire to own luxury goods. Here’s the problem, luxury goods have a snowball effect.
Be Ready! Planning Menus in Advance
Does this scenario sound familiar to you?
I just got home from work, ugh, need to make dinner, let’s see what’s in the fridge…hmm just some milk and ketchup. Guess I’ll order Chinese food.
