Master Your Personal Finance

How to keep more of your money? Are you doing the three below?

1. Saving
2. Investing
3. Taxes

Most people know about the first two but the rich are expert with the third one and find ways to pay less taxes then everyone else, legally.

Opportunity cost: the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.

What would you like to learn and or change when it comes to personal finance?

Last year I self publish my book titled:"7 Reasons Why You Are Headed To A Financial Crisis And Don't Even Know it" but I didn't feel the timing was 100% right but I went ahead and did it anyway. The good thing is it's already out there but I will update it and provide the tools that have helped me along the way. This time I will promote it, last year I kind of felt it wasn't the right time but now it's the right time.

I thought of changing the title to:"7 Reasons Why You Were Headed To A Financial Crisis But Didn't Even Know it" Because many are finding out right now.

My current situation is if I loose my job tomorrow. I have enough to live the same lifestyle for more than 20 months.

Once the book is done and updated with what I have learned recently I will be giving out free digital versions and paper back versions. Let me know if you want me to keep you posted.

I remember years ago I used to do my budget on paper. When I realised I wanted to see it on a the go l. I started taking pictures of it. Now I use a Google Sheet and always do it on the go. I never do it at home, I only do it while I am commuting to work. Always stay on top of your numbers and know where you are. My bank apps will not help me because my minimum balance isn't 0 (pro tip) and it's always increasing 💪.

The choices you make affect your life. Living below your means short term will give you freedom and peace of mind.

I believe in short term sacrifice for long term success and freedom. I have been living below my means for a while now. Today I have reached a major financial goal.

My old self would have spent $500 a month on a nice car
An extra $500 a month on a really nice place
And the rest would be paying back debts

Now I take public transportation, I have been debt free for years and I live in a small place. The nice paid for car is coming, the nice place too while remaining debt free.

Now I can easily put aside $1500 a month. It's all in the choices you make.

This will help you in every area of your life. It's worth watching and sharing.

*31 Days* "You'll Never Be Broke Again!" What Billionaires Knows and The Poor Don’t What would you choose - 1 million dollars or 1 penny that doubles everyday for one month? ***SUBLIMINAL PROGRAMS*** - https://bit.ly/2z7zyfG ================...

The life of a regular person. This video is worth watching if you have kids even more.

Bill Cosby Economics 101 Season one - First episode from the Cosby Show, 1984

3 Things I do to achieve my financial goals.

1. I make a monthly budget before the month starts.

2. I keep my budget simple with 3 major categories in this order.
A. Savings (it's a priority I have a savings goal to reach)
B. Bills or expenses (see how bills come after my long term plans)
C. Free money, what is left. (I still allow myself enough money to have fun)

3. I keep track of my spendings to stay on track.

This will only work if you have made some decisions, planning and actions to live on much less than you make.

This is one of the most annoying thing I see from my financial institution, yet one of the most motivating one 😂 I made a deposit this morning but it doesn't show yet.I don't believe in automating deposits, I do all my transfers manually, it forces me to be disciplined.

This how I do my monthly budget:

1. I have a template that includes all the recurring bills
2. I then add the unexpected expenses and non monthly bills
3. Then I set my monthly savings goal for the month which is minimum 38% of my take home pay up to 57% of my take home pay
4. When all this is done I then give myself an allowance and some fun money.

Needs comes first and wants come after for me. The need to save is more powerful than going ahead and spending money. Because my goal is to be my own boss and to do so I need savings to be able to handle income fluctuations and not rely on the business to pay my bills.

Financial levels you need to master.

1. Not use the available credit on your credit card.
2. Keep money in a savings or checking account.
3. Carry cash and don't spend it.

#1. Mastered and done with, my cards are at 0.
#2. Mastered and done with, over 5 figures in savings.
#3. Let me tell you about 3 😂 Last week I had $20 left for the week (I give myself an allowance and stay on budget) the desire to spend that $20 was the hardest thing I had to do in years when it comes to money discipline. I always spent all my allowance. When I reached day 3 I was used to carrying it in my front pocket. The battle was won.

Now it serves has a reminder on my whiteboard. That's the $20 that consumed my mind for 3 days. Financial discipline is a mental game hit the mental gym 💪

On thing we often forget when creating an account a "high interest" savings account is looking at the fees. I cleared my bank account and took my money somewhere else. I log in tonight and see $5 per transaction. Good thing I only did one taking my full balance out. From my checking account I covered the $4.33 Another lesson learned 😬😂

Always check the fees structure when opening one of those accounts. Then tend to behave differently.

New bank offers no fees, unlimited transactions and pays double the interest. 😎

Story time:
Cash is still king

It was time for me to find a smaller place. I was now living alone. I no longer needed a four bedroom apartment. People tend to live to the max or very close of their ability to pay. I was moving from a place that was $925 per month to a place that was $475 per month.

My current landlord had created a basic application and requested proof of employment along with my previous landlord information. For some reason he couldn't get in touch with my employer a bank at the time. I sent him a screen shot of my bank account which said "Staff" that was proof I was working there. My bank balance was more than double the rent, it was just chilling in my account.

After that text message he called me back, telling me I got the place and I could come and sign the lease. Since people live on the edge of their income, it's logical that this rent was on the edge of mine.
Which was not the case for me It meant big savings.

When you can prove your ability to pay all the doors will be open. Start building your savings to the point you are used to having money just sitting there.

Small amounts can bring by savings. I just change my bank account package, I had unlimited transactions. I switch to using a prepaid Visa card. Which means I have unlimited free transactions and I am using my money. By doing this I am saving $12 a month.

I always keep track of when my cellphone company offer new plans. I changed my plan, I am getting more for less. By doing this I am saving $16 a month.

It doesn't seem like much but when you add the two you get $28 which is $336 per year 😮🤔

Now the next step is to put that $28 a month in a separate account so I can see it grow otherwise it will just disappear. 🤷🏾‍♂

You should NOT be using a credit card if you are not following my 3 simple rules below.

1. Have a card that has no annual fee.
2. Pay you credit card in full every month AND use less than 30% of your available credit.
3. Have an emergency fund that's more than 3 months of your living expenses.

Working in the insurance field and looking for a place live. Showed me that a good credit score is important. It's no longer just to get a loan. It helps you save more in general or get a place to live.

An easy way to increase you score and pay less for some of your services. Your credit utilization.

Credit Utilization??? You say

Your credit utilization (which is the amount of your credit card balance compared to the credit limit) plays a major role in your credit score. Making up 30 percent of your credit score, credit utilization is the second biggest factor that influences your credit score — second only to your payment history.

Having a good credit utilization is important if you want to build and maintain a good credit score. As your credit utilization increases, your credit score can go down. A high credit utilization indicates that you're probably spending a lot of your monthly income on debt payments which puts you at a higher risk of defaulting on your payments.

Generally, a good credit utilization ratio is less than 30 percent. That means you're using less than 30 percent of the total credit available to you. It sounds like a no-brainer, but to achieve 30 percent credit utilization, you should keep your balances below 30 percent of the credit limit. Anything above 30 percent can cause your credit score to drop. On a credit card with a $1,000 limit, that means keeping your balance below $300.

How a 24-year-old reached millionaire status 🤔

Frugal Living To Retire Early : It’s Simple But Works What does it take to retire early? Frugal living is the simplest path to retire early. Frugality will ensure you can retire early - it's simple but works. It...

The higher your savings rate the sooner you can retire. Now you know why the 10% savings takes about 40 years. In order to save more than 10%, you need to be in control of the other areas of your life.

This means having a maximum percentage for all the areas of your life so you can stay on track. I have created a google sheet where you can enter your numbers and see where you overspend and where you need to start making some changes.

The pie chart below is my current situation. My google sheet will do all the calculations and create the graph for you, all you to do is enter your numbers.

If you want to know more send me a message.

"Penny wise and dollar foolish"

This expression means savings the small amounts while not paying attention to what really has an impact. It means being very good at savings a few dollars here and there while loosing thousands a year.

For example not seeing how much you are paying on interest on your credit cards, how big your car payment and related expenses are, how much you are paying on housing, living paycheck to paycheck.

On the flip side being dollar wise means living well below your means and save the difference so you have more peace of mind and freedom. I need 40% of my income to live on, the 60% is saved and will soon be invested. For me peace of mind is one year of rainy day money 3 months is too small, 6 months is better but one 12 months I feel totally relaxed.

After being dollar wise you can now look at the small holes in your financial bucket. This month I change my cellphone plan and now will reduce bank fees remove them by having the minimum balance when possible.

Bank fees is an area we waste a lot of money. For instance I am giving one Bank almost $200 a year for the privilege to use my OWN money with having to count transactions. 🤔🤯

Money stages in my opinion 😉

1. Quick sand (being in debt)
2. Solid ground (debt free and rainy day savings - 6 months to 12 months)
3. Climbing (investing without worrying about loosing money but learning and getting better)

Money becomes fun and a game when you start climbing. You just want to play more and spend more time playing 😉

Learning from successful people is important. Also being open to different frame of minds 😉

How I Changed My Bad Attitude Towards Money Help support my my channel by subscribing and turning on notifications - lets grow my channel together! --Follow me-- You can follow me on Instagram here... ...

Do you have a monthly saving goal?
Enter it in your budget as an expense and make sure it's paid once a month or divide it every two weeks.

When you do it this way, you will not feel guilty about spending money because you know you will reach your financial goal.

What Would You Like to Learn About Money That Would Make a Difference In Your Life?

For over a month we have been offline working on our website and publishing our book on Amazon. Today we got our proof of the first version of the book available on Amazon. They want to make sure you don't resale your proofs😉. We wanted to write a book for non readers we are glad the book is thin it's only 82 pages 😊, No excuses people. More coming soon