Wealth of Personal Finance Tips
Over at YourCreditAdvisor.com, there is a great article on 102 Personal Finance Tips Your Professor Never Taught You. Be sure to give it a good read as there are some outstanding tips, including a few of my favorites:
- Spend less than you earn. While it seems so simple, there are many people that do not follow this tip.
- Pay your bills on time. Even in the days when I struggled with debt, I followed this one rule and it resulted in always having a respectable credit score and not getting swamped with fees.
- Be patient. As I have discussed with ways to curb impulse buying, the ability to practice delayed gratification can really save a considerable amount of money.
- Negotiate fees. I’ve written a few times about the power of a phone call, whether it be saving $138 in ten minutes or reducing the interest rates on your credit cards. This tip can have very positive results.
- Recheck your withholding every year. Awhile back, I wrote about earning an extra $200 per month simply by adjusting your withholding to reduce the size of the average tax refund. Put the money where it belongs, in your pocket.
There are many other tips in the article that have the potential to save you a considerable amount of money. Take some time to read through the tips and see where you can save some money or improve your situation.
It is unfortunate that most of us were never taught to follow three essential principles: (1) Avoid paying interest whenever possible, (2) Use other people’s money whenever possible and (3) Find and use a financial system that will guide you, especially if you have the tendency to go off-track. The Money Merge Account software and the program’s counselors use these principles to keep each homeowner focused on their wealth accumulation goals.