Stay Out of Bad Debt

Pay yourself first is such simple advice, but so few people do this. 

The best investment decision you can make is setting a high savings rate because it gives you a huge margin of safety in life.

The only way to get ahead financially is to stay behind your own earnings power.

By following the conventional path of "school to loan to university to work" you risk running into serious debt. Being creative is a potential way to lessen or eliminate that.

Maybe finding a different and cheaper way of doing the same thing, doing a yard sale or getting a side job… Put your mind to it and you may find ways to get a financial boost. 

When you buy mutual funds, you are charged a purchase fee upfront. This is a one-time payment to the fund management institution. Annually, you will be charged with a percentage of management fees, commonly known as “expense ratio”, which can be expensive.

Beware when advisors at your bank recommend mutual funds to buy. They might be earning a sales commission.

This becomes a problem when you’re spending for a life you can’t afford. It puts pressure on your budget and encourages you to live in a paycheck to paycheck cycle.

Assess your financial situation, cut back on your expenses, prioritize your money goals, and then come up with a new spending plan.

It’s hard to stick to a budget that doesn’t have a goal.

When there isn’t one, your budget becomes an afterthought rather than a spending plan to reach your financial goals.

• Create a full inventory of expenses in front of you: Categorize them into fixed and variable; urgent and non-urgent; necessities and luxury; avoidable and unavoidable.
• You can create a hierarchy of needs and decide which one’s to address first. It’s all about prioritizing. 
• Accept that you have limited resources and unlimited wants. But you have to manage your resources. The sooner you accept this fact, the better you can control your impulses towards avoidable expenditures.

It’s a statement wherein you can jot down your assets and liabilities.

• Pull together your bank statements and other proofs of the liabilities
• List down your assets like the bank balance, all investments, home value, and value of other assets.
• Take a sum of all the assets to arrive at the total value of your assets.
• List down your liabilities the (car loan, home loan, credit card balances etc.)
• The sum of all the liabilities will show the value of the money you owe.
• When you subtract the value of liabilities from assets, you get your Net Worth.
  

Your future self might have more income, but it’s also fairly likely that your future self might have less income and you’ll find yourself in a really bad situation. 

Even if your future self is doing well, there are probably going to be other big expenses that you’ll want to deal with at that time, like buying a house.

• Building an emergency fund: set up an automatic weekly or monthly transfer from your checking account to your savings, then leave the savings alone until an emergency appears.
• Eliminating high-interest debt: Set up a simple debt repayment plan by organizing your debts by interest rate, then attempt to make a double payment on whatever debt has the highest interest rate.
• Saving for retirement: It will actually end up being a much smaller burden than you expect,  lifted up by the pleasure of knowing that you’re securing your retirement.

The Envelope system is a way to track your variable expenses like food, entertainment, and drinks.

This method, preferably used weekly, allocates a certain amount in each category in labeled envelopes (food, drinks, movies, etc.). Once the envelope is empty, you are done spending in that category.

The principles that make a good budget, something you can stick to:

• Being Realistic: Being too strict is a recipe for failure.
• Making Adjustments: A budget is not set in stone, but a fluid thing.
• A Team Sport: If you live with a partner or spouse, you have to agree mutually on how to budget the financials.
• Expect the Unexpected: Keep an emergency fund, ideally 3-6 months of necessary expenses.
• Budgeting the Expected: Certain upcoming expenses need to be budgeted in advance, like property tax, holiday shopping, etc.

• Consider an All-Cash Diet, as limiting yourself to physical currency combats overspending.
• Set aside 1 minute a day to check on your financial transactions, to identify problems, track goal progress and set your spending tone.
• Allocate at least 20% of your income to financial priorities like emergency funds, debts and retirement fund.
• Budget about 30% of your income for nonbasic spendings, like entertainment. Abiding by the 30% rule, you can save and splurge at the same time.

• Draft a Financial Vision Board, it motivates and helps you to stay on track with your financial goals.
• Set specific financial goals stating the reason, the way, numbers and dates.
• Adopt a spending mantra, a phrase that serves as a rule of thumb for how you spend.
• Love yourself. Taking control of your finances is part of that.
• Make bite-size money goals. Make the bigger ones but also small step goals to get there.
• Don’t be a financial fatalist, and switch to more positive mantras.
• Get your finances and body in shape. The discipline associated with regular exercising translates to managing your money well.
• Appreciate what you have now, instead of being a consumerist.
• Get a Money Buddy. Studies indicate people pick up good habits from friends with similar traits.

By making wealth your priority now, you could be both later. Establish a strong financial foundation that will give you financial security and peace of mind moving forward. 

Living paycheck to paycheck is a guaranteed way not to build wealth.

If you’re just starting on your personal finance journey, it might not be time for you to start acquiring these assets yet.

• Investing in stocks is simple if you avoid lucky stock picking. Keeping long-term perspective, invest early, especially in low-cost index funds.
• Rental properties.
• Small business ownership.
• Delaying gratifications.

R. Kiyosaki's "Rich dad, Poor Dad" reads like a novel. The most shocking message of the book:

Don’t focus on your job or career. Think primarily about building personal wealth.

“With low interest rates, and an uncertain stock market, the old adages of saving and investing for the long term make no sense.”

It is what Kiyosaki recommends in his famous book, but saving and investing for the long term are exactly what most experts say you should do.