How To Avoid a Personal Bailout
As we begin the New Year, the nation's economy is crumbling. It is becoming apparent that protecting your finances is extremely important in addition to protecting your identity. To get you off on the right foot, we have listed several tips and suggestions to get your financial house in order.
1. Make sure you know the difference between your needs and your wants. Financial security depends on you spending money in the smartest possible way. For instance, gasoline is a need while ordering a pizza is a want. Frugality is absolutely a necessity. Clip coupons and watch for sales or deals on things you will be needing soon.
2. Have 6 months of living expenses in Savings. Take account of your monthly bills, including groceries and gas, and save 6 months of these in a savings account for a rainy day. It's very easy to save a little every month from your paycheck and put it into an account that may be difficult to get into. This will become your emergency fund and should only be touched in emergencies ( i.e. someone looses their job). If you must dig in, be sure to replace it immediately.
3. Pay off all of your DEBT. Begin paying off your debt by starting with the highest interest bearing debt like credit cards and personal loans. Sometime the interest rates on these can be as high as 39%. Do this before you begin saving. It will help to save you money in the long run and is one of the most important steps to gaining financial independence.
4. Protect your Identity. Identity theft has become the crime of choice in recent years. It costs victims on estimated 6 billion dollars a year to pay for identity theft. You can protect your money and your identity with a service like Life Lock. Life Lock is a service that guarantees protection of your credit backed by $1,000,000 to you if they don't. They help to reduce the amount of credit card offers you receive and pro-actively monitor your credit.
5. To keep you from dipping into your savings unnecessarily, put extra money into CDs, money market accounts, or other securities that are harder to access. That way, you won't be tempted to spend all that hard saved money.
6. Write out a budget and stick to it no matter what. This is so super easy to do. Label several jars with categories like "eating out", "movie night", or "entertainment". Every payday, put $40 in each jar. That will be your allowance for that particular category. When the jar runs out, you have to wait until the next pay day to replace the money and your budget for that item. This sounds tough, but it can really be of benefit to your finances.
The current economic situation is not good. This is not big secret. As a result, we have to do what we must to protect ourselves from needing assistance, something some of the big companies should have done a long time ago. Don't get in a bind in 2009. Follow a budget, look for sales and discounts and be a smart spender.
If you are careful with your money, you will not require a bailout in 2009. Hey, maybe we can become the example and teach the major corporation CEOs how to do this.
1. Make sure you know the difference between your needs and your wants. Financial security depends on you spending money in the smartest possible way. For instance, gasoline is a need while ordering a pizza is a want. Frugality is absolutely a necessity. Clip coupons and watch for sales or deals on things you will be needing soon.
2. Have 6 months of living expenses in Savings. Take account of your monthly bills, including groceries and gas, and save 6 months of these in a savings account for a rainy day. It's very easy to save a little every month from your paycheck and put it into an account that may be difficult to get into. This will become your emergency fund and should only be touched in emergencies ( i.e. someone looses their job). If you must dig in, be sure to replace it immediately.
3. Pay off all of your DEBT. Begin paying off your debt by starting with the highest interest bearing debt like credit cards and personal loans. Sometime the interest rates on these can be as high as 39%. Do this before you begin saving. It will help to save you money in the long run and is one of the most important steps to gaining financial independence.
4. Protect your Identity. Identity theft has become the crime of choice in recent years. It costs victims on estimated 6 billion dollars a year to pay for identity theft. You can protect your money and your identity with a service like Life Lock. Life Lock is a service that guarantees protection of your credit backed by $1,000,000 to you if they don't. They help to reduce the amount of credit card offers you receive and pro-actively monitor your credit.
5. To keep you from dipping into your savings unnecessarily, put extra money into CDs, money market accounts, or other securities that are harder to access. That way, you won't be tempted to spend all that hard saved money.
6. Write out a budget and stick to it no matter what. This is so super easy to do. Label several jars with categories like "eating out", "movie night", or "entertainment". Every payday, put $40 in each jar. That will be your allowance for that particular category. When the jar runs out, you have to wait until the next pay day to replace the money and your budget for that item. This sounds tough, but it can really be of benefit to your finances.
The current economic situation is not good. This is not big secret. As a result, we have to do what we must to protect ourselves from needing assistance, something some of the big companies should have done a long time ago. Don't get in a bind in 2009. Follow a budget, look for sales and discounts and be a smart spender.
If you are careful with your money, you will not require a bailout in 2009. Hey, maybe we can become the example and teach the major corporation CEOs how to do this.
About the Author:
Linda Seamore is an expert on the subject of personal finance and has written many articles on it and on credit protection programs like LifeLock. She suggests researching all credit protection programs like www.lifelock.com before signing up.
posted by Debt Consolidation Loan at
8:44 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home