Monday, January 23, 2006

Stick Money Everywhere

I was fortunate to usually earn more money that I needed to spend. I also knew that there would always be an emergency of some sort to occur when I would need extra cash. Also, I am a true believer about paying yourself first because I knew that I would likely not be to eager to save any additional money. I found these things to be very helpful.

Like most of the financial planning articles, I recommend allocating the most you can to your 401k especially if your employer also contributes to it. Secondly, I always try to have more taken out of my paycheck than necessary in federal and state income tax withholding in order to obtain a several thousand dollar refund. Additionally I try to sign up for savings bonds so that i can obtain at least a $100 face value bond each month. Finally I try to optimize my employee spending account so that I can make tax free payments on some of the family bills.

The income tax refund checks from the federal and state each year usually helped out for a house repair or maintenance project that always comes up.

Hopefully, we are all going to retire some day and we will need to have some retirement savings. Also we are all going to be faced with emergencies where we will need to really reach for savings such as our retirement savings for other problems, such as severe medical problems or unemployment. I have had to spend down some retirement money for daily expenses, transitioning from a job to a business. Many of my friends have had to spend most of their retirement money due to health problems. Some of my other friends spend down their retirement savings because expenses are very high when you retire before you are elligible for social security and medicare.

Savings bonds are great nesteggs. If you can build a supply over many years they really add up with interest. They recommend cashing them in when you will have low income for the year.

I also believe in establishing seperate bank accounts for your children and to leave the money there for them for college or starting out on their own.

Funds from a part time business are always a good thing, too. You never know when you will really need it.

The worse thing about saving is to have close friends and relatives that had the swim club membership or expensive cars and trips that did not save and now are now needy. You wind up trying to help them out too.

Stick money everywhere is a good idea. It can keep your credit card balances low or even at a zero level. It can help ellininate the need for a second mortgage or personal loan. It can help you save more. I still believe in sticking money everwhere, more than ever.

Everyone Should Have a Business by Age 12

Everyone Should Have a Business by Age 12.

Everyone should have a business by age 12. Right away one learns so many things in life. I started out with a paper route. I delivered newspapers door to door and collected the payemnt for the paper and my services. I was lucky to not only earn the profit from what my customers were charged for the newspaper and what I paid for them, but most of my customers would give me a little extra as a tip. I would up with a windfall with the Christmas presents too. At the time, my territory was about 1000 garden apartments where people moved in and out all year long. My newspaper company paid me a dollar for a new daily subscriber and another dollar for a new Sunday subscriber, but usually they ran contests to Mets baseball games or party boat fishing trips to the New Jersey shore. I saw a lot of games and went fishing many times. I was learning all about being an entrepeneur. I started to save some of my money and spent some mostly on fishing tackle and my coin and stamp collections.

I learned about the reward of working. I learned how to keep records. I learned how to save. I learned about responsibility. I enjoyed some financial independance from my parents making good decisions on spending the earnings. I enjoyed the "free" trips to the Mets games and fishing trips. And it did not take up too much of my time.

There are a lot of things boys and girls can do today. Some places still have kids newspaper routes. Baby sitting, grass cutting, car washing, light housekeeping, leaf raking, snow shoveling, and many other things need to be done in most neighborhoods. Some businesses need flyers delivered door to door. There are many things available for kids to do today.