I don’t know about you, but at the beginning of every year something I start concentrating on is how I hope certain areas of my financial life will go and where it will take me. For instance, I look at my business and hope it stays thriving and continues to be profitable. I look at my bank account and hope it keeps growing. I look at my life and I hope that it continues to give me everything I want and hope for.
Not as expensive as it looks 🙂
The truth is that not everyone does that kind of thing. There are people who hope for new jobs, new friends, new love lives, and new bodies. Those things are bad, but one of the things we often see when we look at other articles and such is that there are more people who say that they wish they were millionaires and they hope to win the lottery.
Those aren’t bad dreams, but for the majority of people that’s not reality either. Truth be told, there’s fewer people who win the big lottery dollar amounts than there are getting bitten by sharks every year. The percentage of people who become millionaires is a lot higher than that, but there’s a percentage of people who aren’t millionaires any longer because they didn’t handle their finances properly.
With that said, we want to offer some issues and recommendations that we believe might help people improve their financial situation if possible, even if they can’t reach the dreams we mentioned above. Were also going to link to articles on this site where we talked about the specific recommendations in more depth.
Employment
In 2022, we heard a lot about the topic of quiet quitting. In essence, this means that a number of people decided that they weren’t going to go above and beyond the duties their jobs asked for, because they either didn’t feel that they were being treated fairly or paid enough money. We understand that because there’s a lot of us who felt the same thing when we were younger every once in a while.
However, we also understood that sometimes you have to put in the time and effort to at least learn as much as possible about the job you’re doing so that you can hope to find employment elsewhere that might pay you what you feel your worth, or might lead you to being able to offer your services via self employment.
We also recognize that sometimes people have to take jobs they never wanted in the first place because that’s the job they could find. Never stop looking for something you have interest in, don’t always underestimate your skills, and if the best you can do is find a job where you’re at least comfortable with the work you have to do in the people you have to work with and for, it takes a lot of pressure off you and that will help you to learn easier and make better decisions for yourself in the long run.
Savings
When we talk savings, we don’t talk about a savings account in a bank since these days they don’t pay all that much when it comes to having a savings account at a bank. What we talk about is figuring out ways of saving money based on items you’re always going to buy anyway.
For instance, food is something we can’t do without, but there’s nothing saying that you can’t shop around to see if there are any kind of deals or differences in price for the same thing. There are few states across the country where the price of eggs have gone up dramatically. Yet, shopping around will give you the opportunity to see if places like Walmart or Aldi’s are selling items like that at a lower price.
These are fancy!
There are also farmers markets all over the United States where local farmers are selling the same things for a lot less money. We get use to the ease and convenience of going to our local stores without realizing that there are always other entities where we might be able to save on things like that.
In previous articles we’ve talked about saving money when it comes to buying clothes, paper products, and many other things. All of us get use to certain name brands that we like, without thinking that sometimes a lesser name brand might give us exactly the same thing. In any case, the more money you can save save my shopping better is money you can use for other purposes. You can also put some of that money away for a rainy day, which hopefully you’ve been doing anyway.
Having health goals is always a good thing, but sometimes it’s expensive. Peloton was useful and motivational for a lot of people during Covid, but it was also very expensive. Joining a local gym in your area might also be useful, but some of them are very expensive as well.
For many people, if there’s a place you can go to walk for a while, like a large mall if the weather is bad or just walking your neighborhood, you can get in some good cardio work without spending any money. You can also decide to buy a few things to use at home that aren’t that expensive, such as a dumbbell set or stretching equipment that offers people a way to get some exercises in that would match what you might be able to get in the gym.
If you don’t have a pool or you want heavier equipment, then going to a gym isn’t a bad thing, but make sure you’re going to follow through with your routine if you’re going to pay big money for it. It’s always easier to start at home to see if you’re going to keep up with it.
Investing
Investing is a good way to help grow your money if you can afford to put some money into an account. The problem these days with investing is that there are many options that a lot of people don’t understand that they get into an might make a lot of money one day and might lose it all the next.
Crypto currency is dicey because it’s not as regulated as investing in the stock market, and not everyone who invests in it understands it all that well. Investing in the stock market sometimes feels dicey because, unlike 15 years ago, if you don’t put a significant amount of money down at the beginning you’re pretty much on your own in trying to figure out what you should invest in.
If you already have enough money, or you’ve been budgeting well, it never hurts to talk to a financial advisor or someone who can help you at least get started properly. You’ll want to make sure that your speaking with someone who knows what they’re talking about, but you still have to be careful because sometimes their recommendations might feel like they’re a bit high for your risk level. Never do anything that you’re not comfortable with when it comes to your money.
Credit Cards
Credit cards are always helpful in an emergency, but it doesn’t bode well to get too used to using them all the time unless you have a strategy. One strategy is to pay off your entire balance when you get the bill, but if you can do that then why use the credit card? Another strategy is to use it for a particular item that might cost a little more than you want to use your cash for the time, and then pay it off over the course of 2 to 6 months. That helps you build up a credit score, which helps you to get a larger loan later on if you needed to buy something like a house or car.
It’s not a good thing to do to get too many credit cards, but having at least one card that you use for all purposes, and a business card if you’re self employed, works out well because at least with the business card you can write off those expenses which saves how much money you have to pay on your taxes.
There’s other strategies you can use with credit cards, but you have to be vigilant if you decide to go this route. There are cards that offer six months without interest if you switch, and if you think you can pay down some of your debt faster that way it might be something to look at, but only if the APR after the fact is lower than the APR of the credit card you already have.
There’s also the option of finding a credit card that has a lower APR across the board than the card you have, and that can help save you money on interest. However, it only helps you if you don’t start making lesser payments than you are making with the other card, because you could be extending the length of how long it will take you to pay off the card, which means it wasn’t really all that helpful.
That’s all were going to talk about for now, because we hope this is giving you at least something to think about that might help you long-term. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave one. We wish you a wonderful new year.