Increasing your net worth is fairly straight forward. Lower your expenses and/or increase your earnings. There’s only two ways to accomplish it. Although increasing your earnings has a much higher potential, the easiest way to start saving money is going to be through decreasing your expenses. For me, that means living like a poor person. Well, at least from the perspective of most people I talk to, but I don’t think I’m poor. As a young bachelor this isn’t much of a problem for me, in fact I find it exciting as it’s a challenge to see where I can cut costs and find ways to save more money. However, if you’re not all about decreasing your expenses for your entire life, you may be wondering… how long do I have to live like a poor person, until I become rich?
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by Ryan on July 7, 2010
How often do you try to do more than one thing at once? For me, it’s almost every time I sit down in front of my computer. I have music going on in the background, perhaps watching a review or video on youtube, while trying to write an article and every so often I’m glancing over at a book that’s open next to my computer. Needless to say, I’m often juggling tasks that aren’t necessarily productive and often detour me from my task at hand. At the moment as I’m writing this article I’m focusing only on this article (so I’m behaving), and guess what… it’s working! Although I probably already knew it in the back of my head, researchers have found that multitasking simply doesn’t work.
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The recession, lack of spending, unemployment, debt, foreclosure… are you as sick of these words as I am? Well if you want them to stop, go spend money and do your part in turning around the economy, duh silly! 
As consumer spending makes up a significant, but debateable percentage of the national economy it’s not hard to understand that the fate of the economy is in large part in our own hands. Knowing that you have two choices, spend money and support the economy we know and love from the past few decades (big with lots of stuff) or enter the realm of frugal living, you’re left to wonder… is frugal living bad for America?
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by Ryan on July 1, 2010
I hear the phrase “a lot of money” well… a lot… but what is a lot of money? Recently I asked what you’d do with an extra $20,000 and to some that was “A lot” of money, but to others it was not a lot of money at all. What gives?
Bringing this topic up reminds me of how different perspectives are in the world of finance primarily due to the external environment one lives in and the benchmarks they have in their mind because of their previous experiences. If you’re being raised by billionaire parents who live a highly extravagant lifestyle I actually feel sorry for you because your previous experience will make your “a lot of money” a lot more than my “a lot of money” and therefore you’ll probably have to work “a lot” harder if you want to achieve that status that’s created in your own mind. However, you do have the benefit of the knowledge handed to you by billionaires which may help at tad as well.
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CNN recently created a video in which they asked New York residents in Central Park a simple question “How would you spend an extra $20,000?”
Most of the people whom they asked were puzzled, not necessarily sure what their answers should be and the range was huge from shopping, to investing, to starting a business, to buying a car. I didn’t hear anyone say I’d invest it in a retirement account though!
Watching the video put the obvious into perspective. Most people don’t know what to do with their money or any gifts of money they would receive. Too judgmental? Perhaps it was because nobody had any specific answers such as I’d invest in X, or I’d buy X car, or I’d do X just made me realize that the people who were asked didn’t have any sort of goal they were saving towards otherwise that would’ve been their first response… right?
In any case the video made me wonder whether $20,000 is a lot of money, what you could do with that $20,000, and what your responses would be to that question.
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Getting rid of debt seems to be many people’s number one priority. They realise they need help with their debt. The sheer number of personal finance blogs, or PF blogs as they have come to be known, dishing out debt advice makes this clear. For many of us, however, eliminating debt is a bit of a balancing act. Things do not always happen in exactly the way we’d like them to nor do we always stick to our budget/principles/guns in exactly the way we had intended to.
One of the biggest obstacles in our path to a debt-free future is that of indecision. This happens when we have too many options available to us. It’s similar to when we’re standing in front of the toothpaste aisle and 897 toothpaste brands stare back at us. All the options look equally good and therefore we feel unsure that we’re doing the right thing.
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The topic of money doesn’t come up that much, being a social taboo and all, but when you have to explain your spending habits as a frugal consumer it can create a few odd looks and perhaps a judgment by your peers as being cheap. Being frugal it’s safe to say that, you’re in the minority… Most people do not save the majority of their money, cut cable television from their bills, or enjoy watching their account balance grow and eventually snowball. Personally I have more fun saving $100 than spending it at the mall, which makes me odd in America. However, even with my frugal ways there are ways to explain it so that you appear to be “normal” and not a money weirdo.
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Although I never intended to win any awards when I started writing about personal finance, that’s just what’s happened over at ecollegefinder.com. Apparently they think I’m doing something right, so I’ll try to keep it up! Although admittedly I have been a slacker in the past month It’s summer in Hawaii… who can blame me?
Several of my other favorite bloggers were mentioned as well and hopefully a few college students will find value in learning about personal finance and proper money management. After all, that’s where the seeds really start to get planted as young people such as myself begin making financial decisions that will make a lasting impact on our lives.
by Ryan on June 11, 2010
With so much talk about becoming a millionaire and becoming financially free it can all seem a bit daunting. After all, only 2% of Americans are millionaires and if you’re a just starting out in life (myself included) it doesn’t exactly seem realistic to come up with a million dollars or become free by next Tuesday. Instead of focusing on these largest goals possible and the end product of years and years of labor, consider chunking it down into baby steps.
If you’ve ever seen the movie “What about Bob” you’ll recall the famous book “Baby Steps.” “Baby Steps” is simply the name of the book, but Bob (played by Bill Murray) takes it literally and does everything in baby steps which allows him to face the challenges of his life that had previously shut him into his apartment.
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The career track as you know it is not a permanent condition of human life. It’s barely three generations old.
Civilization has been around for maybe 8 millennia. And for 7.9 of those, “career track” meant working on the family farm and eventually inheriting it. That’s if you were lucky and male. If you were female, it involved a lot of spreading your legs and hoping you survived at least enough childbirths to keep the lineage from going extinct.
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