challenge

photo by Jeff Keen

This list may be a wake-up call. If it is, start making some changes because there is no way you’re going to get out of trouble unless you change you mindset, change you habits and change you life.

1. You’re having trouble saving your income.  Pick an amount and start today.
2. You don’t know how much money you owe.  Big problem.  Go get a reality check and add it up right now!
3. Your friends wonder how you manage to live so well.  Ouch – the truth is you’re wagering your future against the present and you’re losing!
4. You’re paying some of your bills with your credit cards.  First problem is you can’t pay the bill.   The second is you just increased the bills amount by adding finance chargers.  The third, you probably can’t pay the credit card bill either!
5. You borrow money from relatives and friends.  They don’t mind helping you out because they like you. Right? … For now.
6. You’re bouncing checks.  Pay attention!  Each mistake you make like that has a fee attached to it makes the problem worse.
7. You don’t need or want some of the things you buy.  Go find the stuff you don’t need or want and return it or sell it.  Find a way to return some value from your poor decision.
8. You get turned down for credit.  First off – why do you need MORE CREDIT?  Second, GOOD!  Fix your current credit and solve your problem that way instead of looking for more.  Additional credit will only make the problem worse.
9. You stop opening mail and start ignoring bills.  You can’t ignore this problem.  It won’t go away unless you make it go away.
10. Money is haunting your thoughts, keeping you awake, and causing you anxiety.  This is your mind trying to send a message. WAKE UP! You’re making the wrong decisions.

Stop right now and start over.  You can get yourself out of this.  Start here.

1. Map out a plan.  Start by figuring out how much you owe.
2. Look at your expenses and cut out everything you don’t need.  And I mean NEED, not want.  This means everything except food, clothes, housing, transportation – the essentials.  The rest are LUXURIES that you can’t afford.
3. Start paying off your debt and don’t stop until it’s gone.

If you make it that far, you’ll know the changes you made and you’ll already know how to make sure you don’t fall into that trap again.  Start right now.  You don’t have a choice.

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Part of being thrifty and frugal is also being wise. Wisdom guides our decision making and we all know that if you make poor decisions they’re going to come back to bite you. Many of those poor decisions can affect your wallet – and we ALL hate that!

So, what if I told you there was something you could do today that would make you more prepared for the unexpected? How about if it could also increase your chance of avoiding dangerous situations? Surely this bit of wisdom could help you make some good decisions, right? ‘But…’, you say, ‘it must be something difficult! Something that will surely take time and effort. Maybe it will even cost me money!’ Not in this case. The 2 second rule takes exactly 2 seconds to learn and 2 seconds to apply. (Click to Continue…)

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There’s an interesting article at Consumer Reports Health called Dieting on a Budget. They surveyed over 21,000 people and have published much of the results online. There are some very interesting results, and I highly recommend taking a few minutes to read a few of the articles in the report.  They’re short and to the point and have some great strategies and motivational nuggets.

One aspect of the data they collected speaks directly to the question of cost relating to dieting and staying in shape. (Click to Continue…)

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I just read a post by Laura over at No More Spending called Never reaching my emergency fund goal. Like many people, I’ve struggled with putting together an adequate emergency fund. The decision often centers around a choice between paying off debt and saving for an emergency fund. The argument I’ve experienced and seen shared most often is that it’s hard to keep money in your bank account knowing that you have debt out there accumulating interest. So instead of building up your emergency fund, most people just continue to pay off the debt.

The problem with this approach is that if you do have an emergency – and you will, we all do – you will have to rely on your credit to cover the emergency costs. So if your refrigerator breaks or your car dies, you’re left with no other options and will end up paying interest on those emergency expenses.

So why not try a different approach.  This worked for me and may do the trick to get you over the emergency fund hump as well. (Click to Continue…)

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One of the biggest monthly categories of spending that most people deal with is healthcare costs. Health insurance, prescriptions, medications, doctor’s visits – it all adds up. When you’re trying to pay off debt and save on expenses, it may seem like there are very few options for saving on healthcare costs. But I bet that you’re overlooking two of the most obvious ways that you can cut your healthcare costs without sacrificing your health in the process.
(Click to Continue…)

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At the end of October, Ramit Sethi at I Will Teach You To Be Rich started a series of posts called the Save $1000 in 30 Days Challenge. I’m always looking for new ideas to save money so I’ve been following along through the month. The first few are often some of the first things that come to mind when you start to think about quick ways to save money:

• Bring lunch with you instead of buying lunch
• Turn your thermostat down 3 degrees(or more!)
• Sell something on eBay(or anywhere for that matter)
• (Scroll down to read all of his suggestions here)

The other items on the list, the more difficult items, are the ones that interested me the most.
(Click to Continue…)

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