Finance

This is the last lesson in this series on money. I consider it the best financial tip I every learned – developing a side income.

Many people have issues with their current job/career; they don’t like it, they don’t make enough money, they don’t see an opportunity for a promotion, they are not really good at their job, or they don’t like the people around them.

A lesson I learned was to get myself a part-time job. Not just because of the extra income (although certainly nice) but to do something I love, to get good at it, have a separate source of income, in case I lose my job, and most importantly, to have something to do when I retire and that can earn me some money that means I don’t have to pull as much out of my savings. As a result, I can either retire earlier, or more comfortably.

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I remember being a kid and making up games all the time. Back in the late sixties, early seventies we didn’t have cool toys, video games, computers, smartphones and cable TV. We had boxes and dirt, actually a box was a luxury. You only had one if someone’s family bought a new washing machine. When we didn’t have a box, we would crawl inside the bushes and there was enough room under there for a nice fort. You would come out of there with scratches and your skin itching from the plant oils or bugs but it was worth it. We would spend hours making up games, on the fly, no instructions, just a couple of kids and a situation.

As we get older, we lose the ability to use our imagination.

How does this relate to lessons learned in finance?

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Spending is the topic that seems to be the focus of most accountants and personal finance people. Working on and developing budgets is their primary task.

While it is important, it can get in the way, be a time-killer, and discourage most people from focusing on their finances. A lot of people would disagree but they tend to be the kind that love working on budgets and spending time mired in the details, ones who love to research where they spent that last $1.97 and place it in its proper category so that everything is in balance.

We need accountants, heck I am one. But most people can’t and won’t do what accountants do.

What is a better solution?

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By Mattijn Franssen

Be Ruthless with Debt

The third principle I learned was to rid myself of debt. There are benefits to this principle beyond just the financial savings.

If you missed lessons one and two click here

LINK Lesson 1
LINK Lesson 2

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Lesson Two – Saving for Retirement

How are you doing with your saving for retirement? How many more years do you have before you would like to retire? Not sure, well one fact for sure is you have one less year than you did last year.

A large percentage of the population does not save enough for retirement. Gone are the days when you have a pension and social security guaranteed to be waiting for you when you retire. You have to take control yourself.

But how? Even though your income may go up every year, you can’t seem to scrape enough “extra” to put aside for savings.

There is a way to do it though that is not as painful as you might guess.

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Lesson One of Seven – Saving Money

One of the best pieces of information I have learned is to replace bad habits with good ones.

We all have bad habits, especially in the area of money. We overspend, we save too little, we owe too much, we don’t make enough income. All of these problems are seemingly impossible to tackle. But all big problems can be addressed by working on them a little at a time. If bad habits got you into the mess, then good habits will get you out of them.

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