whiners lol.. i live on 360 a month disability ssi...
thats what ya get when your married 18 yrs to a jw .
ya dont get social security points for going door to door ya know!
how can I be so poor?
by jwbot 28 Replies latest jw friends
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TallTexan
Candidly - that sucks! Maybe if you'd been able to claim all those 'donations' you got from the householder's as income over that time.......
Hey, but at least you put spiritual things first, didn't go to college and get and education, didn't put any money into savings b/c Armaged-dumb was right around the corner. See how well that's paying off now???
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Scully
I went to a personal and professional development seminar a couple of weeks ago, and by far, the speaker I enjoyed the most (and got the most from, and that's really saying a lot, because Dr. Phil was the "main attraction") was a fellow by the name of David Bach.
David Bach is the author of several books, including: Smart Women Finish Rich, Smart Couples Finish Rich and The Automatic Millionaire.
The basic principles of "finishing rich", according to Mr. Bach, are:
Pay yourself first:
The government figured out a long time ago that the average person was incapable of putting money aside regularly for paying taxes, social security, unemployment insurance, and pension plans. So they take it from you automatically every time you get a pay cheque.
Corporations followed the government's lead, and whenever you sign up for a gym membership or a magazine subscription, they offer you the convenience of automatic debits from your chequing account or automatic payments with your credit card(s).
Do the same for yourself: Allocate an amount each pay that is the equivalent of one hour's worth of wages per day and automatically transfer it into a savings account with compound interest, or into an RRSP or 401K account.
Figure out your "Latté Factor":
Most people let money slip right through their fingers without giving a second thought to the small regular daily purchases they make. Bach refers to this kind of mindless spending as the "Latté Factor".
To find your Latté Factor, keep track of everything you spend for one day. Then, look at these expenditures and sort out what are absolutely necessary expenses and which ones can be substituted with less expensive alternatives.
For example: If I spend $3.50 on a latté every day and $1.50 on a muffin ($5.00), I can substitute these for a cup of home brewed coffee ($0.25) and a piece of fruit ($0.50) instead. Right away, I've saved $4.25. If I put that money into my savings allotment automatically, that translates into $1,551.25 per year.
As well, spending $6.00 a day on lunch: suppose you bring a sandwich and a piece of fruit from home instead that costs $2.00 to make, and have water from the office water cooler. That's another $4/work day that you save, or $1000 per year to put into savings.
Over the course of your lifetime (assuming you're 20 now, and retire at age 65) a latté and muffin every day, plus a fairly inexpensive lunch at a fast-food joint (approximately $50/week) adds up to a whopping: $114,806.25!! If you were to take that money and automatically put it into an investment venture (like an RRSP or 401K) that paid 6% interest per year, you'd end up with just under: $601,000!!
Buy a house and pay it off early
Do whatever you need to do to scrape together enough for a downpayment on a house. Set up automatic bi-weekly mortgage payments, to pay down the principle of the mortgage more quickly. You can save thousands and thousands of dollars in interest by exercising this option, without feeling any hardship to your budget. You simply take your monthly mortgage payment, divide it in half, and pay it automatically on pay day, making a total of 26 bi-weekly payments, equivalent to 13 months of mortgage payments. That extra month's worth of payments goes right on the principle, and over the course of 12 years, you've shaved off an entire year's worth of your mortgage principle. Whenever you receive a windfall, make a payment directly on your mortgage principle.
Don't use credit cards
Simply put: Credit cards are a trap. Cut them up and decide to never use them again. Pay them off as quickly as you can, using bi-weekly automatic payments and making lump sum payments on the principle whenever you possibly can. If you have a credit card that charges 28.8% interest (like many of the department stores do), over half of your monthly payment is INTEREST. What comes with a price tag of $100 in the store, ends up costing you $300 by the time you pay it off on the credit card's minimum payment plan. When you look at it that way, is the item you are impulsively wanting to buy really worth that much??
Anyway, those are the basics - if you're interested in getting the books, you can find them at Barnes & Noble, Chapters or www.amazon.com (www.amazon.ca for the Canadian version). FWIW, he is in no way advocating that you give up ALL the little luxuries of life - you still need to have a little fun - but if you plan a little, you can really make a huge difference in your financial future.
Good luck!
Love, Scully
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FiveShadows
I really would like to make a very huge contrabution to this post...some words of insight and wisdom, but nope. I have no money to spend...seriously. Not because i don't work or ...don't have money coming in...but mainly because the business generates the money and transferrs it into a bank account that isn't under my name. Lets see, today i barely had something worth 1.39 for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And the only way i got that is because I found some change!
~FiveShadows
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Lehaa
I've always been of the opinion, you spend what you earn. F you earn $50 a week you'll spend $50. If you earn $5000 a week you'll spend $5000.
I'm terrible with money so I don't have credit cards or a check book. If i want something i but it on Lay-By and pay it off.
I also have my bank account set up so I can directly debit money into my mum's account, so if i manage to save some money I put it in her bank account and she looks after it for me. It's amazing how fast $20 here and ther adds up. She has strict instructions only to give it to me if it's really neccesary, not just because i saw something really cool and really want it.
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Scully
Lehaa writes:
If i want something i put it on Lay-By and pay it off.
We call it Lay Away in Canada and the US. But, yes!! Isn't that a wonderful system? No fees, no interest charges, just make regular payments at the shop every time you get paid and before you know it, it's yours! The shop will even keep track of your account for you! The only thing required of you is patience, which is the bait and hook of credit cards: you can have it NOW and pay for it later... and pay and pay and pay. Immediate gratification is not all what it's cracked up to be.
I agree with you that people tend to spend as much as they have. That's what the trick is with setting up your finances to automatically divert the amount you want to save into an account that is separate from and more difficult to access than your bill paying account. You won't see it, so you won't feel the same urge to spend it. It's basically a psychological trick you play on yourself.
Love, Scully
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Billygoat
Neil and I never had our "financial talk" until we were married for a year. It was a terrible situation that finally forced us to discuss it. I won't go into it now. But...we finally talked. Which you and your s/o have finally done. Great job! Eating out was our downfall too. Mostly because we are so busy, that we're too tired to cook. We keeps tons of canned tuna, cheese, and tortilla chips around. Just eating tuna on chips or cheese on chips with some fresh fruit is a great healthy and cheap meal. We've tried to find a few super easy meals that we really love and are easy to fix. In the pinch that we're wanting to eat out, we try to fix a meal before the craving for restaurant food comes out too strong.
I challenge myself to see how many days I can go without a single item appearing on my bank statement. (I make 99% of my purchases with my debit card).
Elsewhere - this is something we do too, or at least a version of it. We'll take out a little cash and see how long it can take us to spend it. We use our bank's online bill pay, so bill's are never late, but our debit card is where we fall short. So we started making it a game to see how long we could go without eating out.
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Xander
Most people let money slip right through their fingers without giving a second thought to the small regular daily purchases they make. Bach refers to this kind of mindless spending as the "Latté Factor".
See, the problem with this advice is that it takes what is worth living for away.
I'm sure I could handle two jobs, eating nothing but bread and water all day, and live in a 600 sq ft apartment with just a bed and a shower. I'd be retired by the time I'm 40 with what I'd save!
But, at what cost? 20 years of living like THAT? No thanks!
I get extremely depressed if we are having a rough month and I *can't* just impulse buy things. If I can't buy a latte on a whim or go out to eat instead of cooking...it makes it near impossible to get up for work the next morning. The feeling you can't shake is "Why am I doing this? I can't afford what I want, what's the point in working at all?"
I think that's pretty common, and probably why just about *everyone* has expenses damn near 100% of their income.
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Scully
Xander, I guess I lost your attention after I got you all depressed... sorry about that!! Here's what I finished with:
FWIW, he is in no way advocating that you give up ALL the little luxuries of life - you still need to have a little fun - but if you plan a little, you can really make a huge difference in your financial future.
Anyway, it all boils down to how you want to handle your life and finances. You can trim an amount of your choosing. You can decide what things you are willing to forego, or not.
BTW, it's nice to see you posting again!
Love, Scully