Ok. So in the past 6mths, I have took vacations to Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Vancouver, Toronto, San Diego, Napa Valley, San Francisco and Lake Tahoe. While these have been incredibly fun, they have destroyed my savings goals. These do not include the business trips of course which are mostly company comped. I just realised no money have been saved and seriously problematic spending habits are forming which needs to be kept under control.
After realising that I have saved nothing for the past 7.5 months, a warranted review of my financial picture ensued. Horror and almost disgust overwhelmed me while recounting the vacations, restaurants and drinking expenditures. My resolution during the New Year was to not be so tight with money, but didn’t really define what that meant. I was good a saving and apparently very good at spending. I need to find a balance between saving and spending – a skill which has eluded me for a while now.
What is happening??? Help!
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3 comments:
Well I think the answer is obvious - you need to blog more!! Kidding! Let's see - I may not be much of a saver, more of an armchair financial critic - but I'll see what I can come up with.
The nicest model I've seen is the one I first read in the "The Wealthy Barber". Essentially it tells you to hide your savings from yourself, mainly by using pre-authorized transfers into savings. Preferably savings that make it difficult to pull money out of. Have those occur when your paycheque goes in then whatever is left in your account is what you can spend.
This also assumes you have a good handle on your regular expenses and pull that out as soon as your pay goes in as well.
I like this scheme because it is easy to follow. Just spend cash (or debit), don't use credit. You setup your savings goals ahead of time and you don't feel like your handcuffed into "not buying" stuff. You either have money or not. Very binary.
Good advice! You could do much worse than following that path!
I particularly like the "no credit card" part!
2 words: sugar mama
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