Money In your Wallet? - Here are three simple tips to get rid of that empty feeling

Every person should have money in their wallet.  If you don’t here are a few tips to help get rid of that empty feeling.

1.        Pay yourself first.  Yep it’s that simple, pay yourself first.  You should be paying yourself at least ten percent of everything you earn.  Put it away in the bank until you have enough to invest in a money making opportunity (We will get in to that later). This thought even extends to couples, and you can choose to do this jointly in one account on the total amount you earn or separately on the amount that each of you earns in individual accounts.

2.       Use the next twenty percent of what you earn to pay your debts, excluding rent, food and entertainment.  That means your car payment, your credit card debt and your loans are all paid by this fund.

3.       Live on the rest.  This is where you buy food, gas, pay the rent, the cable, have some fun, etc…

This is the electronic age and the automatic age direct deposit is just about mandatory now a days.  Online Banking is also in vogue so you can automate your ten percent.  Just set up your account and have the bank transfer an amount as close to ten percent automatically to your savings or your investment account every time you get paid. No cheating though.  If you go out and get another job make sure you pay yourself first. 

Don’t touch this money! EVER! Of course you can use it in an emergency but pay yourself back.  Oh yeah, that new X-Box is not an emergency and neither is that new dress, get what I mean?

Many are going to say how can I possible live on seventy percent of my take home? 

Debts are a big thing now a days.  Many of you are already behind in your payments and your credit is already shot but you can fix it.  First list all, I have to stress all, of the debts you have including amounts.  Then prioritize the debts and how much you will pay the creditor from the twenty percent.  Always stay within the twenty percent.  Call the Creditors individually and explain that you are trying to fix your situation and then tell them how much you can afford to pay them.  A word of caution though, once you set the amount don’t miss a payment and don’t change the amount, unless it pays off the debt.  Once you pay off a debt you can then roll that payment in to the next debt to accelerate the payments but do not change that amount back to the original agreed payment amount.  Changing the amount will tell the creditor that you can pay them more than you agreed to and they will start coming after you again and the whole purpose of this is to do the right thing and pay off the debt.  Some creditors will balk at the agreement but none will turn away payments they receive especially if they are consistently and regularly paid.  Once paid off the creditor will be happy that you did pay your debt and you will have done so and kept the stress lower than if you had them calling you every hour or hounding your boss. By the way, if your debt is in credit cards don’t use them while you are paying off your debt.

Investing for your future or making your money work for you is very important.  Disclaimer, I am not a financial adviser so before you invest talk to your financial advisor and invest wisely.  Invest in only what you know about. 

There are companies that pay dividends and do so consistently and at around seven percent.  That is infinitely better than what you are getting in your bank savings account. Consider ownership of precious metals like gold and silver.  I am not talking about stock in them but physical gold and silver.  It is suggested that ten percent of your investment portfolio should be precious metals.

Buy insurance on yourself.  This is probably one of the best investments you can make when you are young.  If you are a young person and do not have insurance I suggest that you get some.  Recommendations about term or whole life insurance are a whole other subject, discuss this with your insurance agent.  Suffice it to say that insurance is immeasurably cheaper when you are young and healthy than when you are older and possibly have heath issues that make you uninsurable.  Let’s face it life throws us curve balls and a health issue like high blood pressure can cause you to not be able to get life insurance in your later years and that could be devastating especially when you have a family to provide for.

Research everything I put forth in this article; don’t just do this because I said so.

To summarize, pay yourself first and in a few years you will find yourself with a nice little nest egg, pay off your debts and keep your debt at no more than twenty percent of your earnings, this will eliminate your stresses about your debt and give you a better life and invest in your future. Finally, make your money work for you.  Make your money make you more money. You will find yourself with money when you need it, debt free and being able to live the life you want to live.  You will not regret this.