Money is the fuel that makes our lives running. We need money to put food on the table; for personal care; transportation and virtually every move we make needs money. Of course there are those priceless things that does not need money at all. However, there are money rules that we can live by and if we only stick to them, we’ll never have money problems again. If we’ll ever have, then these money problems can be manageable, at least.
Live these Money Rules and You’ll Never Have Money Problems Again
In my exposure as a credit evaluator, I have experienced countless times that I would cringe in disgust with the way some people think about money. How can you throw a feast on a simple birthday or anniversary when you don’t even have money to sustain you for a week or a month? How irrational it is! Yes, this is just one of the many reasons I encounter why some people would borrow money.
There are simple ways and practical ideas that we can practice to at least improve our financial lives. Take note of these money rules and attain financial peace in your life.
1. Never Spend Money You have not earned Yet. Never spend money that you still don’t hold.
If it is not yet in your hand, don’t spend it. Period. Many times, when we anticipate money, we count it in advance, therefore the tendency is to incur debt because we expected some money in the future that will pay for it.
Bad debt in itself is counter productive and will not bring us financial peace at all. It will always haunt us especially when we are buried in debt that it becomes so terrible and hard to manage our cash flow due to the mountain of debt that we need to pay for.
2. Don’t Go to Debt to Pay Debt
I have somebody close to me who spends a lot. He often eat out at restaurants, buys branded clothing often and has always the latest gadget that comes out.
The catch? He is financially miserable.
He has plenty of debt here and there. His credit card limit is maxed out. A lot of online lending companies are looking for him to pay his debts, not to mention local lenders that he owe money as well.
When I ask him how he end up having debt to a lot of people and lending entities, he replied that he borrow money to pay debt from other lenders. This style of debt payment is like a chain and now he ends up having plenty of debt to several lenders. What a messy debt management!
I believe that the best way to tackle debt is simply be a man to talk to the lender about how he would pay for it. If he needs to restructure it, then by all means, he must. Going to debt to pay another debt will never solve the problem. It only complicates things.
3. Know your Spending/ Trace your Spending
If you cannot see it you cannot manage it. If you cannot measure it you cannot improve it. Figure out how to increase money coming in and try to control the money coming out. Define the movement of your income.
When you want to trace your spending, it is important to have a workable budget. With a budget at hand, you will be guided as to how much is your spending limit on a particular item and just work on it.
4. Not just save, you need to invest.
We all know that saving alone will not move anything. Heck, saving will even eat up the value of our money, thanks to inflation.
There are a lot of investment vehicles we can ride on. It is up to us to decide which ones fit our investment goals and risk appetite. We can go for stock investments, index funds, dividend investing. If you are brave enough and knows how to spot properties for investment, you can go this route and invest in real estate.
There you have it folks, some money rules to live by in order to attain financial peace in our lives.
