Money tips to help keep you in check.

 

Money tips to help keep you in check.

Create a budget if you haven’t done so already. It’s always a good idea to have a budget created so that you understand what your money is being spent on. Outside of your immediate bills, rent/mortgage, utilities, car payment, food, etc., you should cut back on expenses that make no real sense, such as Starbucks coffee, and outside lunches or dinners. Consider making your own coffee every day and bringing your lunch to work plus making dinner at home to help save money each month. Take my challenge, for every cup of coffee you make at home, put $7.00 in a jar. For every lunch you make at home and bring to work, put what you would have spent in the same jar, same goes for your dinners. By the end of the month, you’ll be surprised how much you saved. You can either put that amount toward your mortgage payment or car payment to help pay it off faster, or just put it into a money market account and save it each month.

If you have a mortgage or car payment each month, contact the lender and ask for an amortization of your account. What this is is an outline of your payments each month plus interest in how your loan is broken down for your account. For example, if your payment is $325 per month for a car payment, probably only half or ¾ of that payment goes to the principle of the loan so you’re pretty much paying the interest upfront before ever really touching the principal amount. By knowing this upfront you can adjust your spending to allow you to add an extra principal payment to your account, whereby paying off the car sooner than scheduled. Same goes for your mortgage account. You can send in an additional payment every few months to help pay it down faster than scheduled. If you allow yourself to not buy the hefty coffee charges each month you might actually be able to make an additional car payment and shave off about 1 year on your car payment schedule and maybe 5 years on your mortgage. For example, if you pay $7.00 per cup of coffee at Starbuck each weekday morning that’s $140 per month you spend by being lazy in not making your morning coffee at home. If you spend $10 for lunch each weekday that’s $200.00 a month you could be saving. Those two combined is an additional principal payment for your car payment, or maybe half of your mortgage principal payment for the month. Or if you put that money in a money market account that adds up to $4080 and could be used to send yourself on a vacation for the year.

In addition, you could explore creating another stream of income from a hobby you have, or maybe through an affiliation program using Amazon or another program that you shop at a lot. Bank that money each month if you’re doing well or use it to help pay down debt such as car payment, mortgage or even invest it for a rainy day. If you think ahead, you might be able to retire earlier than your 60s and enjoy life before you’re to old to enjoy it any longer.  

 

Author Elizabeth Kilbride is a former political operative, author, scriptwriter, historian, and journalist. business professional, creative artist, and life coach consultant. Ms. Kilbride holds a Master's in Criminology and a BS in Business Management she stepped out of the loop for a while but is now back with a powerful opinion and voice in the direction of this country and our economy. As a life coach, she is available to counsel individuals to enjoy their dreams and a better life. Ms. Kilbride loves to travel, and photograph her surroundings and is also a gourmet cook who loves to garden and preserve food for the winter months.