Do You Pay Yourself?
The typical scenario is that you get your paycheck. After you recover through the shock at how little is left after taxes, you 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 more than and your savings don’t grow.
A better plan would be to pay yourself initial. Don’t let the cash get into your hands.
You might find which you actually start to grow your savings much quicker this way.
Should you work for an employer with a 401K plan, the first point you ought to do is to fund it to the max. Should you can’t afford that, at least put sufficient in to get the complete matching contribution form your employer.
This expense is made just before taxes. Your expense is larger and with the employers contribution grows quickly.
Next have a brokerage or mutual fund company debit your banking account monthly. This funds must very first go into an IRA – if you have five years or a lot 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. The younger you are, the much more aggressive your choice of fund may be.
After that’s done, then figure out how to pay your bills and living expenses. If money is tight, cut back on your living expenses and use the extra funds to pay down your debt.
Start with the lowest balance very first. As soon as that debt is paid, take the amount of money you were paying on that debt and add it to the payment about the next lowest balance debt. Continue doing this and you can be totally debt free within 5 to 7 years.
Another version of this method is paying the highest interest rate debt very first. The principal could be the same, you just see much more progress with the very first method, although it could be more costly based on how your debt is distributed.
(In case you don’t believe me, get the premier version of Microsoft Money or Quicken and use the “Debt Reduction” module. You may be shocked at how much money you may save and how quick you are able to eliminate debt this way.)
The idea is to scrimp at the expense of your current lifestyle, while leaving your savings to grow and you debt to shrink.
I know numerous of the people reading this will scream that this really is an impossible plan.
But it’s quite doable with a little will power and the ability to delay gratification for any while.
The problem is that in case you don’t do this, your future might turn out to be very bleak.
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