Top personal finance strategies

Searching for personal finance guides to improve your financial positions and to avoid cash issues ? Spending less doesn’t mean you’ll have more. Saving is a good way to stabilize your finances, but you still need to invest. “Pretend there are two islands,” advises Aliche, who is also known as The Budgetnista: “Financially Stuck Island and Wealthy Island.” She says that your savings can be like a car—you can’t drive off Financially Stuck Island without a bridge. Investing is the bridge to financial success. “To get from one island to another, you need to get in your savings car and drive it over your investment bridge.”

How original! I know, I know! But it needs to be said. When just getting started with your personal finances, you need to create a savings plan and actually stick to it. Many times you get a rhythm going, then you slowly get a little lazy. Don’t! This is how you fall back into old non-savings habits. I used a spreadsheet that laid it all out with how much cash should be going towards savings and investments. See more info at Save Money.

It sounds simplistic, but many people struggle with this first basic rule. Make sure you know what your job is worth in the marketplace, by conducting an evaluation of your skills, productivity, job tasks, contribution to the company, and the going rate, both inside and outside the company, for what you do. Being underpaid even a thousand dollars a year can have a significant cumulative effect over the course of your working life. No matter how much or how little you’re paid, you’ll never get ahead if you spend more than you earn. Often it’s easier to spend less than it is to earn more, and a little cost-cutting effort in a number of areas can result in big savings. It doesn’t always have to involve making big sacrifices.

Break Down Your Income & Expenses: Credit for this one goes to user GeekLimit on Reddit – one of my favorite personal finance tips! This is an odd little trick that can change the perspective you have about your money, and help you budget better. It’s all about breaking your income and expenses down into daily values, like this: You make $2,500/month = ~$83/day. You pay $800/month for rent = ~$27/day. You pay $200/month for car insurance = ~$7/day. Everything else (food, phone, gas, etc.) comes to $750/month = ~$25/day. That means you’re left with $24/day in spending money. Want to save $1,000 for a nice vacation? You’ll have to save about 42 days worth of your spending money. That means 42 days of not spending a dime. Want to buy a new $10,000 car? That’s about 416 days worth of your spending money. This will help you see how far purchases are going to set you back and affect your spending ability. Visit: http://aspiretomoney.com/.