How To Spend Money Intelligently
One of the biggest problems that people have is that they do not pay attention to day to day expenses. It is really important to learn how to intelligently spend money so that you can save as much as you can and be successful in your long term endeavors.
Buy Essentials First
This is, most likely, the most important thing that you have to do. There are surely some essentials that you cannot live without. These have to be bought first, including food, water, clothing and housing. As you can easily imagine, if you do not have a place to rest or you do not have food to eat, solving financial problems or saving money will become impossible. Generally speaking, housing costs will consume most of the income, normally around one third of the income.
Save Money For Emergency Funds
If you do not have this set up now, it is important that you start to save cash so that you can easily survive in the event that there is an income loss that appears out of the blue. After covering essentials, a part of what is left should be put into this fund. The idea is to basically end up saving money to cover all your expenses for up to 6 months. That money would be useful when emergencies appear and you can use the money for investments in the future.
Always Pay Off Debts
When you are not careful with debt, it will almost always derail your money saving efforts. Minimum payments are normally recommended but you do want to go over that, whenever possible. As you start saving money and a part of the income can be translated towards debt payment, you will be able to quickly get back on proper track. Make sure that you first focus on repaying the highest interest loan.
After the essentials are covered and the emergency fund is built, it is time to devote most of what remains towards paying off the debt. In the event that there is no emergency fund, you want to allocate money to both debt repayment and building the emergency fund. If this is not possible, negotiate lower interest rates with your lender so that it is easier to pay off your debt.
Put Away Money
After the emergency fund is established and the debt is paid off, you want to put money away in the savings account. This is completely different than the emergency fund. You can use the money that you get in this way to perform repairs, get a car, repair it and so on. The emergency fund should only be used when an emergency appears and the savings account is used for all the rest.
Buy Non-Essentials In A Smart Way
If you still have money left after you go through all that was mentioned above, you can consider non-essentials. We recommend investments that would improve earning potential, life quality or productivity. Making smart long term investments is something that every single person should consider.
This does not mean that you want to invest in a company. Simply buying an ergonomic chair is perfect for people that spend a lot of time at the computer. Many similar examples can be given. Think about what you could use in order to become more comfortable and you will realize that you can easily fare better in the future.
