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| Without money (Photo credit: Toban Black) |
To be financially successful you need to have the habits that contribute to building wealth. Learning from those that have success and ignoring advice from those that don't succeed is what you need to do. Most people struggle all their lives to make ends meet and never accumulate any savings, they live week to week, never getting out of that rut.
Building wealth and being successful with money doesn't take a college degree or any extra intelligence. The concepts can be understood by anyone with only a minor education.
Work
This simple concept of having a job and having one that pays well is mostly ignored by many financial experts. Many people start their work life in a low paying job and stay there all their life. To accumulate money, build a life, and save for retirement takes money. If you find yourself in a low paying job you will never be able to be successful with money because you don't have enough money.
The costs of taking care of yourself and a family is costly and the costs are rising all the time. The greatest investment you can make is to improve yourself. That can mean job training, education, or looking for higher paying jobs. If you sit in front of the TV every night wondering why you broke, maybe it's time to make a move to increase your income.
Saving Money
If you live from one paycheck to the next it's because you spend everything you earn. Financially smart people know the secret to being successful with money and that secret is to save money. Americans are blessed with a never ending supply of things to buy. Don't beat yourself up if you are caught up in this bad habit. Each time you earn money you should make it a habit of depositing at least 10 percent of it in a bank account that is solely designated for wealth accumulation.
As this money begins to pile up, you may be tempted to spend it. Don't. Consistently saving at least 10 percent of your income and resisting the urge to use that money for anything other than sound investments is the most important healthy financial habit to develop. This habit lays the foundation for other healthy financial habits.
Manage or Eliminate Debt
Besides overspending the other bad habit to keeping you broke is debt. Buying things on credit because you cannot afford them is another reason you're broke. Being in debt is not in itself bad but it does keep you from your goals if you don't have the money to pay it back.
The main cause of going into debt is you have a had an unexpected expense and your only solution is to use credit because you don't have the money. This can be stopped by having an emergency fund funded to cover these expenses.
Control Expenses
If your sloppy with your spending and don't have a budget you overspend on the wrong things. Start the habit of making a budget every month. You should have a plan for how you will spend the money you earn before you receive it. Your spending plan would include the money you intend to save automatically and enough to make all your debt payments and cover the household bills.
The habit of budgeting your income -- and knowing where every single dollar goes -- will motivate you to cut costs wherever possible in order to increase the amount of discretionary funds you have left after meeting your monthly financial obligations.
Have a Plan
Make your budget and have a plan for saving and paying down debt. Set short term and long term goals. Make plans to save a certain amount in a 6 month or a 12 month time frame. It's hard to break bad habits, you may fail but the secret is to keep trying and not give up.
