Many of us don’t prepare for emergencies. We live with the notion that what is now is what will be—if not better. This is something I touched on yesterday on the subject of Joblessness, but it pertains to financial planning as well.
While some people may have money saved for retirement (and fewer that have actually saved enough!), the numbers are staggering when it comes to being prepared for family or job emergencies.
What are you wasting your money on?
That really is the biggest question that you have to answer when it comes to saving money and creating a budget. You see, we all waste money—we impulse buy things that we see, we buy things at full price instead of waiting for a sale, and we buy things that we could make cheaper than pay for them.
I’m going to start trying to inject a little more discipline as well as try to keep to a given topic for each day with the hopes of helping me to remain more consistent in my blogging.
This week I hope to introduce the 5 or so topics I will be covering, and next week will be the first week with the new topics going.
That being said…
The idea of Money Mondays is that on Monday I’ll be discussing financial wisdom that I’ve found as well as my thoughts about what is going on in the current economy. It’ll be a mix of practical tips, things I’m doing as well as spotlights on some articles and what’s going on around us.
If you have any questions about how I handle things financially—other than what I make 
– Use the contact page or the comments below and I’ll try to answer!
This past week, I was in a conversation with a coworker about cars. You see, ever since I decided to be done with debt and my wife and I decided to have our third child, we’ve only owned one car—a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan SE. It’s old, but it has low mileage for the age and it’s served us well. Until I started to drive back and forth to work for my new job.
I saw this handy graphic the other day and just had to share. You can click on the image on the right to see the original, full sized image.
The green represents income and the red represents debt. Pardon the language in the 29 year old comment, but it’s very real. The more income we have, the more debt we accrue because of the increased spending power.
The thing is, after we get into so much debt we find that we’re in a prison to debt—giving most of our earnings that are supposed to be working for us to someone else.
This nightmare has to end.
How much do you have saved up? Me, I’m better than about 3 months—especially because we’ve seriously cut back on discretionary spending with my job loss.
As a result of the economy, all subjects related to money or personal finance are currently the hot topic of discussion. There are websites, blogs, books and other areas devoted to covering the latest news in the world of personal finance.
In fact when it comes to personal finance, there are few areas that are truly “personal” anymore. Lenders, employers, landlords and many others can review your credit report to determine your overall “worthiness” and how you handle your money can have a lasting effect on those around you as well.
For this reason it is important to consider how your financial decisions will impact not only your life but also the lives of those closest to you.
One of the first steps in getting a hold of your finances is finding where all of your money is going. The only way you’re going to do this is through work.
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