Keep An Eye On Your Paycheck
The typical scenario is that you get your paycheck. Once you have recovered from the shock of how little is left after taxes, you then proceed to divvy it up among all your outstanding bills, intending to put whatever is left over into your savings.
But there never seems to be anything left over and your savings don’t grow.
It would even be better if you pay yourself first. Don’t let the money get into your hands. In fact, you might find that you actually begin to grow your savings much quicker this way.
The first thing you should do is fund the 401K plan to the max if you work for an employer with that plan. You should at least put enough in to get the full matching contribution from your employer if you can’t afford that.
Made before taxes is this investment. Because your investment is larger, the employers contribution then grows quickly.
Don’t forget to have a brokerage or mutual fund company debit your banking account monthly. First, this money should go into an IRA and if you have five years or more to go to retirement, make it a Roth IRA.
Next have a few dollars more be debited to go into a no-load, low cost mutual fund. If you are younger, then this could mean that you could have a more aggressive choice of fund.
When that’s done, you should then figure out how to pay your bills and living expenses. You should use the extra money to pay down your debt and cut back on your living expenses if money is tight.
Start with the lowest balance first. When you have paid that debt, the amount of money you were paying on that debt should be taken and added to the payment on the next lowest balance debt. Continue doing this and you can be totally debt free within 5 to 7 years.
Paying the highest interest rate debt first is another version of this method. The principal would be the same in which case you just see more progress with the first method even though it could be more costly based on how your debt is distributed.
Scimping at the expense of your current lifestyle is the idea here while leaving your savings to grow and you debt to shrink.
Many of the people reading this will scream that this is an impossible plan. This is, however, quite doable with a little will power and the ability to delay gratification for a while.
The problem is that if you don’t do this, your future might turn out to be very bleak.
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