Bills, bills, bills. There's more month than money. I can't afford that. And on and one. We've all experienced a lack of funds. How we respond to the situation is what matters. Do we face the problem or bury our head in the sand.
The first step towards your financial freedom is to do an evaluation of your debt. This is where you have to be brutally honest. Look at all your expenses. Mortgage or rent, insurance, taxes, food, car payments, and credit card bills. List everything . Start with the monthly recurring bills, like your mortgage/rent and car payments. And the everything else.
Now you know what you spend every month and you know what your monthly take home pay is, so are you a "victim" of deficit spending? Are you going deeper into debt every month? If the answer is yes, then you need to take action to turn it around.
You'll need to look at your fixed expenses and see if there is anyway to reduce those. A mortgage or rent payment is probably fixed, but you may you may be able to shop your insurance. Call a few companies and get some quotes. The same is probably true for your car. I could tell you to sell your car if you have a loan and buy a clunker for cash, but that isn't practical. It often takes as much to keep an old car going as it does to make car payments. But you can shop around for car insurance. There are some deals out there.
Next, you'll need to look at your credit card statements. Are you making minimum payments? If that's what your doing, you will be in debt forever. It takes about 8 years to pay off $1000 with minimum payments. You need to find a way to pay more. You also need to stop using the cards. Cards are play money. Try to buy things for cash. When you have to count it out, you often will realize you just don't need the item. Then, try to negotiate your payments with the card companies. Try to get the interest rates lowered or if you have some extra cash, try to buy out the balance. More and more, card companies are looking to clean up their books, so it's worth a shot.
Finally, everyone has their personal Starbucks. Mine was a bottle of Coke and an apple pie in the middle of the afternoon. Cost about $3.00. Yours might be a Starbucks or a Dunkin Donuts or whatever. I also brown bag it for lunch. I can eat lunch everyday for a week for about $12.00 as opposed to about $5-6.00/day for fast food. By eliminating my treat and bringing lunch, I saved about $100.00/month, $1200.00/year. That started my journey to financial freedom and it can start yours.
It all starts with small steps. Take them and build on them and soon you will be on your way. Plan your work and work your plan.
Did you find this helpful? If you did and would like to view some free videos on the subject, visit my website.
[http://www.TheSuccessfulMaverick.com]
SOURCE
No comments:
Post a Comment