Tips and Tricks
Tip #1 Do a Budget
The First thing I always recommend with all of my clients. If you do not have a budget now then have one by the end of the day tomorrow. A budget is one of the most important things to have if you want to live Financially Secure. If you don't know how much money you have then how do you know how much you can spend?
In Luke 14:28 Jesus says "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it?" (NASB)
This is exactly what a budget is. It's setting down and calculating how much money you have, and how much money you are spending, and what you are spending it on.
Doing a budget is very simple. I personally prefer to do a paper budget, it lets you do all of the math your self and see exactly why things cost so much. But if you aren't into math all that much you can do it on your computer. There are all kinds of free tools to help, spreadsheet tools for the computer. Everydollar.com is a great free tool that simplifies budgeting and makes it easier.
To learn more about how to do a budget and for more tips and tricks regarding budgets, or why your budget might not be working, click this link here.
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Tip #2 Needs vs. Wants
We often call your needs your four walls. These are things that you can no live without. These are clothing, food, housing, and transportation. BTW medication falls under food, and utilities falls under housing, but these can be considered separately if you would like. What is important is that you realize these are things that you need. A want is everything else. Something to remember is that a cable/internet bill is not considered one of your utilities, they are not a need.
Our four walls, our needs are things that we have to focus on before everything else. If you have to choose between paying the mortgage on your house and a credit card payment then you should always choose the house. Missing either payment will harm your credit, but missing a house payment, even making a partial payment could result in your house potentially being taken from you.
Now why do I point this out? All too often I see people debating what they should and should not pay, because they have so much debt that they can't afford everything they owe. This is where the monthly money trap comes in. To lean more check out my budgeting tips. I use to do this as well before I realized what was actually happening. People will debate whether to pay their car payment, house payment, or utilities for the next month, because they have to have food, but they cant afford all four. They don't even consider cancelling their cable bill though. As if that's not even an option.
The thing is because most people pay for their cable bill monthly, and automatically, because they aren't writing a check or making an actual transaction, they consider it as one of their utilities. It's not though. If you don't have a house then cable and internet are doing you no good. If you do not have electricity then cable and internet are doing you no good. Anyone in their right mind would choose to eat food rather than watching it on TV, and if you don't have transportation then it's probably going to be a lot harder to earn money to pay for your cable and internet.
Most people would let their electricity get shut off before they make the call to cancel their internet and cable. That's just a bad call. So remember your four walls and what you NEED, and keep those separate from what you WANT.
Tip #3 Round it Up↑
This tip can not be understated. It does not sound like much but it very much is! First of all, every dollar counts when doing a budget. But not every penny. It's very rare that you have an expense that is just a few pennies, so why would you count your pennies? Don't! Whenever you make any purchase, no matter how small, round up.
You often see stores post prices at $1.99, or $59.99. Why do they do that? It's a psychology trick. In your mind the first number is always more important than anything that follows. So if I say I charge $59.99 or $60.00, you are 30% more likely to choose $59.99 because you see the 5 instead of the 6, even though there is less than a 1% difference between them. This is why I never charge people in this format. I feel that it is deceitful, even if I would be more likely to get a client.
Rounding up does two different things for you. First of all it helps you to realize the actual price of the item or service you are purchasing. I can't count the number of times I have had a friend ask me the price of an item and I say $20 and they will say they don't want it. Then they will turn around and buy it for $19.99 saying that was a pretty decent price for it. I will argue with them that they didn't want to pay $20 for it, and they will argue back that 20 is just too much, and call me a liar. It's not until I explain to them that there is literally a 1 penny difference. that's 0.05% for you math geeks out there. that they finally turn around and realize how much they had just spent on that item. They usually turn around that that point and try to get a refund, unfortunately it's usually too late at that point. But simply rounding up the cost can save you so much money! I can't count the number of Items I have decided not to buy because I rounded up the cost and it was too much.
Next this does another thing. Say your item is a candy bar that costs $1.49. But instead of rounding it up to $1.50 you round it up to $2.00. Not only are you less likely to buy it, but if you do buy it you will actually have an extra $0.51 in your bank account waiting for you. People literally pay for smartphone apps to do this for them. But all you have to do is round up yourself and it will save you that money. Just stop looking at pennies and round up the cost of every item you purchase to the nearest dollar. I'm almost willing to bet that you will be surprised to see how much money you save. There are months months that I check my bank account and I literally have $100+ left in my account that I did not calculate for just because I rounded every single item up in this way. Give it a shot and you will never pay the normal way again!
Want More Tips?
Sorry that this page is so short at the moment. However, I'm constantly working on my website; trying to make it a better resource for my clients, and anybody who is interested in improving their lives and Living Financially Secure. So try again later and I might have even more tips and tricks waiting for you!