I'm having problems managing my finances,cant seem to follow a budget .I need some ideas , plea
Answer:
Unified Theory of Everything Financial
Revealed in Dilbert and the Way of the Weasels
By Scott Adams
1.Make a will
2.Pay off your credit cards
3.Get term life insurance if you have a family to support
4.Fund your 401k to the maximum
5.Fund your IRA to the maximum
6.Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it
7.Put six months worth of expenses in a money-market account
8.Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement
9.If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio
Check the bottom line: A portfolio with an asset allocation of 70% in Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index (VTSMX) is doing just fine, performing remarkably close to the S&P 500 index. Moreover, that simple two-fund portfolio is perfect for the vast majority of America's 95 million investors who are passive much as Adam's Dilbert character.
The truth is, most investors have little or no interest in Wall Street's casino action; all the time-consuming research, the sophisticated stock-picking tricks, the costly trading necessary to play in a market drowning in 10,000 stocks, 18,000 funds and more than 100,000 bonds. Most investors have jobs and kids as their top priority. Moreover, Dilbert's simple two-fund portfolio compares favorably with our other lazy portfolios.
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Bankrate.com
Saving when you're barely surviving
Monday August 28, 6:00 am ET
Don Taylor
Dear Dr. Don,
I am a husband and father of two young toddlers. My net pay is just enough to scrape by every two weeks. With health insurance premiums well over $400 per month, my net pay is only enough to cover the bills. Every time I set aside money, I end up having to use it all for some unforeseen expenditure, and then some with credit cards (whose balances continue to escalate). Where does one in my situation begin to save?
-- Underfunded Mike
Dear Mike,
Your question is one of the more difficult issues in personal finance. How do you work toward the future when you're having trouble getting through the week?
The key is to keep spending less than income. Easier said than done, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need to be done. Spiraling credit card balances aren't the answer. Credit cards just postpone the problem and have you spending money on finance charges that should be going toward meeting your family's needs.
Differentiate between what's necessary and what's nice in your monthly spending. Cutting out cell phones (or alternatively land lines), cable TV, dinners out, etc. brings down your monthly nut. Bankrate has a budget work sheet that you can download to put together a monthly spending plan. Talk to your employer's personnel department to see if there are ways of reducing the health-care costs while keeping family coverage. Taking advantage of flexible spending accounts to pay for medical costs with pretax dollars is one possible way of accomplishing this goal.
The other side of the equation is to increase income. Take a second job, or a third. Don't think of it as forever, just until you can get the credit card balances down and build a bit of a cash cushion. If your wife doesn't work, perhaps she should. Bankrate's "Should my spouse work, too?" calculator will help with that math.
The answers aren't easy, but you've got to ramp up income, throttle back on spending or both to get to the point where you move past paycheck-to-paycheck living and get to the point where your income is also building toward your family's future.
If you've worked through all this and still can't see a way, it's time to ask for help. Your state government might be able to help with health-care insurance for the children, for example. A Bankrate feature, "Finding help in hard times," has some other ideas, too.
To ask a question of Dr. Don, go to the "Ask the Experts" page, and select one of these topics: "financing a home," "saving & investing" or "money."
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you MUST run your financial life just like if you were a publically traded bussiness. think of ways all the time that you could increase share holder value! you must do this if you plan on having the same standard of living or more when you retire!
Do you suck di.ck for a living? Do you wake up in the afternoon wishing you had a life? Did your father ra.pe you in the a.ss from age 8 to 15, tell you stabbed him in the chest? Do you believe that the institutionalization of America, is making us the exact opposite of what our fore fathers perceived? Do you know that the Hispanic race will out number whites in 5 years(cause their isn't anything to do when the powers out, and whites will still be the superior race)?
!!!why just be another rat in a maze!!!
Can most of us follow a budget ?
A budget can help identify where we spend the money but you have to have the will power to stick to it.
What do you want to achieve financially ? I recently learned that i should pay myself first when i get my paycheck - i set up a bank account and get my pay deposited automatically and ask the bank to put 20% of my check into a CD and i do not touch that money no matter how hard things are.
I recently went to a conference and the guest speaker was T Harv Eker and he went through a summary of his book "SECRETS OF THE MILLIONAIRE MIND" it showed me why i was always unable to manage my finances - all of my life i learnt things from parents, friends, teachers etc. and what i learnt has conditioned my mind to react negatively towards money and this is why i was not managing my finances well - once i saw my problem - changed my mind about it - i am now on my way to a better me.
Hope that this helps -
Put something in Excel, in writing, and make yourself stay with it !
Do not spend any money you cannot justify mathematically, put your emotions aside.
Keep a line item balance sheet in Excel. If you can't get by, make further cuts or get a better job !
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