Money advice during tough times taken from Money Central
Today I’ve been working on multiple things, most of them computer related. So, at some point I needed to read about something else. I clicked onone of the Windows Live Messenger today window’s article and got sucked up into reading plenty of money related articles for times like these. Very interesting, and a lot of them apply extremely well. In summary this is what I extracted from them:
- Pay yourself first (also a good advice from Rich Dad, Poor Dad from Robert T. Kiyosaki)
- Pay your necessities first. Start with rent, food, gas and others. Prioritize your bills.
- Use cash as much as possible. I am one that had a race with the credit card because I loved earning points and then spending those. That is a stupid move, don’t let the BAC San Jose trick you into it. It actually worked for me very well when I had to buy everything for the office, now that it is my money I am going to open a debit card with Banco Nacional and make a better work at living on a predefined budget.
- Understand one thing, living on a budget does not mean you have to starve. It means calculating how much you can really spend and try to live on that. If you go over it is not a big deal, but organize yourself.
- Live within your means. I know this is a hard one. Once you get used to something, it is difficult to let go. I was addicted to Amazon and I can assure you I have bought so many things that I didn’t need.
- Keeping up with the Joneses. Why do we always want to have the same or more than other people. I accept I was a little like that, I loved having more than other people. In these last couple of years I have been more frugal. And I have confess that I like it better like this. Once you learn that not everything is a rat race, you live happier. It is exactly the same as the phrase eat to live and not live to eat. Same thing, but just applied to a materialistic lifestyle.
There are many other advices I could give you from what I read today, but why don’t you just take a few minutes and read some of these:
When Paying Off Debt Is A Bad Idea
