Other | Squirrelers

Everyone Has a Price: The Car Test Drive Example

Apr 252013

Have you ever taken a car on a test drive? I’m guessing that while not everyone reading this has done that, a good percentage of people have actually taken a car on a test drive. Here’s another question: Have you ever received compensation for taking a test drive?

I got a promotional mailer recently that caught my eye, since it involved getting something in return for taking a test drive. It actually involved getting a $25 Target gift card if you test drive a Volkswagen. That’s right – you could get a gift card mailed to you upon completed test drive registration. There was some fine print, but the bottom line promotional offer was a gift card for going through the test drive process.

Personally, I took a look at that and thought that it wasn’t an offer that I would take advantage of. After all, I am not interested in buying a new car anyway – much less leasing one. I tend to embrace the value of car longevity, and like to minimize frequency of car purchases. So why should I take a test drive and collect anything for doing so, when it wasn’t a situation where I’d really be serious about making a purchase or lease agreement for one of those cars anyway? I’d be wasting time, both mine and theirs.

Then I started to think about it more. What if – hypothetically – it was a $50 gift card instead? Would I take the test drive in that case? No, I actually wouldn’t. That increase in card value wouldn’t change my position.

If the offer was a $100 gift card? Well, in that case I would give it consideration. If it was $200? I’d be cool with taking a test drive in that case, as long as it was workable in my schedule.

So, the amounts of the offer actually impacted my rationale for considering the promotional offer. At lower amounts, I was thinking that it wasn’t worth wasting anyone’s time. Yes, including theirs. At higher amounts, such concerns faded away. My viewpoint genuinely changed.

The point is that for many things, everyone has a price. In this case, $25 isn’t mine

My Questions for You

How would your answers change as the dollar amounts increase?

What dollar amount of a gift card would get you to test drive a car?

Do you agree with the notion that for many things, we all have “a price” that would change decisions or behavior?

This post was included in an edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance, at Wealth Pilgrim

Learning From Successful People Can be a Great Shortcut

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Apr 222013

Shortcuts can be great. Instead of doing something that takes a long time, we can often take part in shortcut activities that lead us to the same result in a shorter period of time. Instead of walking on a long, winding footpath to a front door, we could cut through the lawn and get there faster. A straight line, “as the crow flies”, can be better than taking the long road.

One example I’ve been thinking about lately has been using shortcuts to learn from others, instead of learning from personal experience and trial and error. Learning vicariously has its merits, to be sure. It can be learning from others’ mistakes, but it can also entail modeling successful behavior.

As I look at my own life, I take pride in what I’ve been able to do. Keep in mind that I haven’t done anything that I would say is extraordinary, as I’m just a regular guy. But still, I’ve worked hard and am constantly trying to improve and get better while having fun with everything along the way.

Nevertheless, in most areas of life, I know people within my circle of friends that have done something much better than me. Maybe the same person hasn’t done better in every area of life, but possibly in one or a few areas. While “success” can be subjective, I like to at least try to be realistic in being able to acknowledge to myself that I can learn from others who have reached some goals that I haven’t (yet, anyway).

So, in certain situations, I think “what would he (or she) do?”

For example:

If I’m dealing with a specific professional situation, I might think about how someone I know has successfully handled it in the past.
If I have to make a big presentation, I’ll think about one person in particular who was a great presenter and used great public speaking skills to help career growth. How would she have handled such a presentation? Given that this is not an area in which I’m naturally super talented, asking this question gets me to think about how I could approach things and learn from her successful approach.
When looking at how to grow net worth, I’ll think about one of my friends in particular. He started with nothing, and has built up a really good financial situation by some good habits. I think about what drove his success, and try to identify one or two things he’s done differently than I have.
If I’m trying to get back in shape – actually there’s no “if”, as this is actually what I’m trying to do – I’ll think about some things that one of my friends has done to stay in great shape. Those little things he’s done every day/week, over time, have allowed him to be in phenomenal health for someone his age.

In other words, I think we if we want to succeed at specific tasks or reach certain goals, we should pay close attention to how those who have succeeded actually went about making it happen. This means not stubbornly holding onto “my way” of doing things, but accepting that the way we may regularly approach something may be less effective than how another person would do it.

Admittedly, I’ve been one to take occassionally pride in the “my way” approach. However, I’m now embracing the idea that it’s way more profitable to directly examine how another person has achieved great success with a given endeavor, and try to model it.

While personal experience can be invaluable, sometimes shortcuts can be efficient and effective

My Questions for You

Do you ever try to learn from and model an approach of anybody you know, for a given task or goal?

If so, what do you try to emulate?

Do you agree with the notion that it’s sometimes a more profitable shortcut to learn from others successes (and failures) than investing your own time and effort to get the same wisdom?

A Business Lesson From A Ceiling Tile? Yes!

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Mar 282013

I’m a believer in the notion that we can improve ourselves in some way every single day. This includes learning lessons in many different contexts, where they can be applied to other situations. We don’t even have to consciously try to do this, it can often be a matter of just keeping our eyes and mind open to observe and understand what’s going on around us.

An example of this concept occurred for me lately when getting a haircut. Yes, that’s right, I actually learned something during that time, and it didn’t involve thinking about how much to pay for a haircut. Rather, I came across small but interesting (to me, anyway) example of opportunistic thinking by a business.

So, I stopped into this local place for a basic haircut. I have long since forgone expensive haircuts, and am now more likely to go to one of a few places that are more inexpensive and of the “chain” variety. Frankly, I’m not willing to spend 2 to 3 times as much to go elsewhere for a more “high end” cut. Anyway, I walked in, waited a few minutes, and then got seated for the haircut. After 20 minutes, it was done with no surprises or anything out of the ordinary.

Then, they ask if you’d like your hair rinsed and dried. I said yes, and went took a few steps to another chair. I leaned back, and then got my hair rinsed. As I did, I glanced up at the ceiling and immediately noticed that there was a ceiling tile right above me that contained an advertisement. It was promoting difference services that they offered.

Now, I couldn’t help but notice it. I had nowhere else to look, really. You just couldn’t avoid looking at this bright advertisement on the ceiling tile, as you’re a captive audience in that chair. As I got up, and went to pay, I looked around the place. Every other ceiling tile was standard white, except that one where you get your hair washed. Quite strategic!

Also quite clever. A little bit of out of the box thinking to make the best use of resources. After all, isn’t a ceiling tile usually something totally irrelevant? Yet that particular one, in that particular location, could be leveraged to become a great advertising space! A good example of how one can potentially monetize anything.

Just another example of how in our own lives, we can find different situations that might otherwise seem mundane, yet find a way to maximize the potential value!

My Questions for You

Have you ever seen any really unique advertisements, taking advantage of out of the ordinary vehicles?

Do you ever try to learn lessons or maximize the value of seemingly ordinary situations?

Financial Spring Cleaning: 5 Tips

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Mar 202013

The beginning of Spring is kind of a nice milestone for those of us living in cold-weather climates. While the weather can be cold even in late March and early April (as I write this, I see snow still on the ground here), we start to get some random nice days in too. It’s the beginning of the great thaw, and a signpost that warmer days are soon upon us.

This is also a time when many folks thing about opening the windows, and getting going on spring cleaning. While this is usually the case with the actual home, we can also take part in a financial spring cleaning as well! Much like the new year is a time of renewal and refocusing, we can look at the beginning of Spring as a time to “clean up” our finances, our at least do some dusting!

Here are 5 ways we can spring clean our finances:

Organize Tax Records

This is the time of year when we have either just filed our taxes, or will be doing so very early in the season. At least here in the U.S., anyway. Along those lines, it might be a good idea to take your new paperwork and documents, and add them to what you’ve already saved. Then, make sure that you have multiple year’s tax documents organized properly in case you need to go back to reference them.

Think this is overrated? Well, I got a surprise letter a few years back about capital gains from a prior tax return. It turned out that the brokerage that had originally sent me the form did not include the purchase price, so without it one could technically say that it was zero. Crazy, obviously, since who buys stocks or funds with no value. But technicalities matter, so I had to go back and get a reissued form to avoid paying a gargantuan penalty.

It all worked out, and it is an example of why need to keep tax records. Might as well keep them organized too. Oh, and on a separate note, this was also a good example of why we should consider having a professional do your taxes.

Check Your Credit Report

It’s a good idea to keep an eye on your credit report. One reason is to make sure that there aren’t any mistakes on there. It’s not at all uncommon for people to check credit reports and find out that there are problems that shouldn’t exist. While they may not be our fault, it is our fault for not being diligent about keeping tabs on this. Hopefully things are fine, and checking is a good quick step to make sure.

Rebalance Your Investments

Many folks like to practice asset allocation, and keep certain percentages of their portfolio in specific types of investments. The thing is, the value of each of these investments in relation to each other might change each business day. For example, let’s take a simple case of someone who keeps 50% of her portfolio in an S&P 500 index fund, and 50% in cash. Let’s forget whether or not that’s smart for a moment, and just think about the concept. In this case, if stocks go up tremendously since the beginning of the year, this person will at some point have much more than 50% in stocks.

This is an example of a situation where rebalancing may be needed. While spring cleaning finances, we can take some time to do that.

Revisit Your Insurance Coverage

Think about the insurance coverage you have. It could be homeowner’s, renter’s, car, personal item, or some other type of insurance. Take a look at the policy you have, and determine whether or not you have adequate coverage. Sometimes we go on autopilot with our insurance without thinking about the actual terms, and just think “oh, I have insurance so I’m covered.” But it might be a good idea to think about the terms of the coverage to make sure that it still fits our situation.

Also, it can be good to periodically shop for rates. As an example, I’ve written before about ways to save on auto insurance. It’s good to take the time to explore the different ways that we can save on not only auto, but the other types of insurance we might have as well. Again, why go on autopilot and pay more if there’s a chance we could pay a fair amount less? Savings can add up!

Check on Your Budget

Sometimes, we put together a budget but we get distracted with day-to-day life and don’t always monitor how our expenses are really looking. Or, we just might track expenses but don’t try to fit them within a budget. Frankly, I don’t think most people do either!

As a part of spring cleaning our finances, it can be good to take a look at our budget, line it up with how we are actually spending, and then see where the shortcomings may be. If we’re doing well with our spending, then congratulations are in order! If not, it’s time to make some changes. No better time than the present to get back on track!

My Questions for You

Do you take any of these actions on a periodic basis?

Are there any actions you like to take as a part of our finances during the Spring?

Do you have any others to add?

Urgent and/or Important? Two Questions to Ask About Items on Your To-Do List

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Mar 042013

We all have our own unique time management strategy. What works for one person might be different from what works for the next person, so we each do what best fits our style. The goal generally remains the same regardless: try to get the most of our time, to ensure that we can live the fulfilling, happy life that we want.

One of the approaches that I’ve learned to take is to quickly ask two questions about any items that might come up on my to-do list. Those questions are:

Is it urgent?
Is it important?

I know that I’m not the first person to think of this. Actually, there have probably been countless pieces written about this approach over the years, so of course this isn’t some new revelation. But it’s only been recently when I started to use this approach.

The idea for me is that time is money – actually, it’s more valuable than money. A person could be a billionaire, but still might not have much more time on Earth than the next person. Our time, particularly the years when we are healthy enough to maximize enjoyment of it, is precious. So why not spend time on things that matter most to us?

This is where many tasks come into the equation. Frankly, we all have things in our life that we need to get done that don’t directly add enjoyment to our immediate existence, but again – they have to get done. These things can be work-related, housework, errands, paying bills – you name it.

That’s where it’s been working for me ask those two questions: is it urgent and is it important?

When making a to-do list, I’ll answer each question with a rating from 1 to 5. Then, the combined score will give me a sense of when I need to attack that item on the list. If it’s a score of 10, it won’t get done right away. If it’s a score of 2 – well, that’s the one I’ll tackle first.

This approach seems to be working out for me, and requires very little time to employ. Which is important, because spending inordinate amounts of time to plan and determine what is important would defeat the purpose of managing time better! For those of us who love to plan and can have the potential to get carried away by it (could me in that group), this is away to feel in control yet do so efficiently.

My Questions for You

Have you ever used the important/urgent framework for managing your to-do list?

How do you determine what to do first, second, etc?

Or, do you find this type of approach – and time management tactics in general – to be unworkable for you?

5 Things For Which It’s Worth Spending More Money

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Feb 182013

It’s almost like a default approach for many of us who prefer not to spend money, where we try to search for the cheapest alternative for a given purchase. Give me 3 choices, and my eyes will first scan for the prices and I’ll be most interested in the option with the lowest price. The burden of proof will be on the more expensive options to demonstrate that they’re worth the extra money!

While this can be the case, I’m realizing that there are times when it is worth shelling out a little bit of extra money for a more expensive alternative with value. Here are 5 examples of this:

Nutritious Food

Let’s say you could buy canned veggies for $0.75, or get the same food fresh for $1.50. Which would you choose?

Or, you could buy a fast food value meal for $4 – with the alternative being a freshly made, healthy meal at home that would cost you $6 and an extra 30 minutes. In this case, which would you choose?

If you choose the cheaper options, the amount you save can really add up over the course of the year. Who knows, maybe you could save over $1,000 annually by selectively choosing the more inexpensive choices. Over 20 years, when invested, that can really add up!

But it’s not worth it. The long-term effects of choosing less healthy foods just might be there for your health, thus inhibiting your quality of life. Why deliberately negatively impact our lives just to save a little bit of time or money? Honestly, I have done this too many times in the past, but am glad that I look at things differently now. Without health, what’s the point? Besides, being unhealthy can inhibit the ability to make money, as the role of money in life is one of interdependency of money, health, and relationships.

Professional Services

There are people that don’t like to pay others to do things for them. There seems to be a large contingent of folks out there that take pride in being self-sufficient to the point of wanting to take a DIY approach to as many things as possible.

Well, I think that when considering the choices of DIY or professional, it’s important to be realistic in assessing our own limitations and shortcomings. We aren’t all jack of all trades, who can do everything well. There are times when we simply need to hire a professional. I’ve talked about hiring a pro to do taxes, but it could also apply to certain legal advice, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, and even health care professionals! The latter should be obvious, but may not always be!

Basically, there are times where you may have to spend a lot more money up front to use a professional, but it could end up saving you money and maybe even help mitigate some risks.

Home or Car Maintenance and Repairs

A lot of people, I’m convinced, don’t think about the importance of saving money in order to do basic maintenance. We do need to regularly save money for home repairs and maintenance. It’s also important to save money (and yes, spend) on car repairs and maintenance.

If we neglect these basic needs, things can fall apart. It’s best to plan ahead for such expenses, and budget for them. When we have already resigned ourselves to the reality that we’ll need to spend money, it becomes easier to avoid being too cheap. Plus, if we do cheap out on these types of periodic expenses, we may end up cost ourselves a lot of money in the future.

Professional Appearance

Surprised to see this one here? This wasn’t on my original list of 5, but then I thought about a person I know who is an acquaintance that works with a friend of mine. This acquaintance is supposed to be a very smart guy, very analytical and bright in business. However, he dresses without much thought. He doesn’t put any time or effort into looking professional (while working in a professional environment), and basically just buys cheap stuff without a second thought. The guy is known for tropical shirts!

He also has a haircut that looks like he just came here from the 1980′s. While I realize that the question of how much to pay for a haircut is one where I’ve supported low costs, this guy literally looks like he cut it himself. There was talk about him cutting his own hair, and I’d like to assume it was a joke!

Just spend a few bucks to look like a professional. One need not splurge to excess, but appearance matters to some degree.

Family

Want to know a good example of penny wise and pound foolish, as the saying goes? I know someone who did not buy his wife anything whatsoever for Valentine’s Day. Nothing. She bought him nothing either, but as we all know (if we’re being genuine with each other and ourselves), it’s the guy that is the one who really needs to be the gift-giver on Valentine’s Day. Yes, I know not all couples give gifts, but in most cases, if the guy buys or does absolutely nothing, he’ll be in the doghouse. That’s just the way it is

Yes, I do think that it is critical to save money. And yes, I personally would much rather see money saved, rather than have my money spent on me for a Valentine’s gift. But that’s my male perspective, and I realize that my line of thinking may be practical on one dimension, but it’s not something one could actually do. That’s where my friend misses the mark. Sometimes it’s better to be generous and happy, instead of being right!

My Questions for You

Do you think the 5 categories above are worth spending more money on?

Are there any other types of expenses that are worth not pinching pennies on?

Do you have an example of a time you spent more money on something and it was worth it?

Personal Finance Topics That Should be Taught in School

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Feb 112013

As a parent, I’m often thinking about things that kids need to learn as they grow up. Manners, responsibility, making good decision, and things of the like come to mind – among thousands of other things. One of those “other” things would be learning about personal finance. Along those lines, it got me thinking about what personal finance topics should be taught to everyone.

I think this way because growing up, I didn’t get any personal finance training in school. Not that I recall, anyway! The closest thing to it was an economics class, where we had hypothetical stock investments. But nothing about money as it relates to daily life, and how to manage it. So while my education was pretty good looking back, that’s the gap that stands out at me.

What do you think younger folks – let’s say, high school seniors – should learn in terms of money-related topics?

Here is what I came up with: 5 personal finance topics that people should learn about when young:

The reasons why we need to save money (retirement, medical issues, emergencies, etc)
How to make a budget
Smart shopping strategies
How to use credit cards, and why we should avoid debt
The basics of investing

Of course there are far more topics that we should learn as we get older. You can tell that I clearly follow this by the variety of topics I get into here. For example, career, real estate, etc. That being said, for those young and at the beginning stages of learning, what do you think of these topics as a starting a point.

My Questions for You:

What do you think of these topics as basics for people who are just learning about personal finance?

Do you have any more to add?

Every Hour Counts: Knowing How You Spend Your Time

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Feb 042013

One of the areas of personal development I’d like to focus on is truly making better use of time. Frankly, it’s probably an endeavor that could help a lot of people be more productive and healthier!

I’ve written before about how I’ve come around to the belief that time is more valuable than money in the big picture. After all, we can make more money but we can’t make more time! Anyway, in that post I related how few peak days and hours we really have, so we might as well make the most of them.

Thinking about it some more, what if we broke it down on a weekly basis, and looked at the hours we have available to do things. First step is taking 24 hours and multiplying by 7, to get 168 total hours in the week that we have available. However, we certainly don’t have that full 168 hours to play with. Let’s say we should deduct 68 hours to get down to 100 hours, with that amount subtracted to account for 8.5 hours per day for sleep and getting ready. Given the importance of sleep, this is probably necessary for us to consider those hours as spoken for.

So, with 100 hours left, how do we allocate them? Not that we need to detail every hour here, but it’s worth thinking about in general, and also worth considering a few examples of trade-offs. One example would be total hours worked. Let’s say you’re on the job for 40 hours a week. That’s 40% of your available hours. What if you instead work 50 hours one busy week? That’s 10% of your 100 hours gone. However, it’s an incremental 17% of that remaining 60 hours.

Another example: let’s say you’re commuting 15 minutes each way to work. This comes out to a half hour per day, and 2.5 hours per week. What if you took a job that paid more, but required a 45 minute commute each way. In this case, you’re looking at 7.5 hours per week, which is an additional 5 hours per week in transit. 5% of your total 100 hours gone, but over 8% of your remaining 60 hours.

Third example: suppose you start a blog. Let’s say you spend 10 hours per week on your blog. That’s 10% of your non-working time spent online. How did you spend that 10% previously?

The point is that we have limited time, and I think it makes sense to consider tracking our time. Maybe not all the time, as that would be time consuming itself. Spending excessive time tracking time seems convoluted:) However, just auditing our time for simply one week might be worth the investment. It could allow us to see how we are spending our precious time.

Many people track expenses, and it truly helps a lot of folks understand where money is going, and where to make changes. Why not think about being similarly interested in how we’re spending our time? The payoffs might show up in money, health, or relationships.

I’m going to do this for a week, and see what I find out. My guess is that regardless of how I think my time might be currently spent, there will probably be some surprises and good learnings from it. We’ll see!

My Questions for You

Do you ever think about how you spend your time?

What are your thoughts about the importance of knowing how you spend time, versus how you spend money?

Are there any areas where you think you spend too much time, and you would like to reallocate to something else?

Find Silver Coins in Circulation

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Dec 132012

These days, I make a large percentage of my purchases with a credit card. Yes, I know that some readers might do the opposite, and pay cold

The silver dime I found

hard cash for everything. But I like to charge for various reasons (topic for another post), one of which is to avoid getting loose change.

However, there is one thing that this approach reduces: the likelihood of being able to find silver coins. Yes, Virginia, there are actually some real silver coins in circulation. We just have to be lucky enough to find them. We also have to be alert enough to look, and informed enough to recognize them.

Now, admittedly, I very rarely look for silver coins. As I alluded to above, being free of loose change when out and about is a nice thing. Thus, I’m not usually thinking about examining everything that comes my way. Nevertheless, maybe once a month I’ll come across a coin that just looks older and different, as if it’s made of something different than what most coins are. On rare occasion, they might be silver!

One of those rare occasions happened recently. I was gathering up a small batch of loose change I had collected over the last week, and noticed a dime that looked different. I checked the date, and lo and behold, it was 1959. Thus, it was silver. Not that it’s a big deal, but the thrill of finding something that you don’t see everyday in circulation was kind of cool!

Basically, today’s dimes with Roosevelt’s face are made of a combination of copper and nickel. This has been the case since 1965, when the Coinage Act of that year moved forward a change in the composition of some coins being produced. The Roosevelt dimes before 1965 – from 1946 to 1964 - were 90% silver and 10% copper.

If silver is a good investment, as we considered here recently, these coins might actually have some value above and beyond the face denomination. At a current silver price of close to $35 per ounce, and pre-1965 dimes weighing about 2.5 grams, the silver portion of those coins can be worth around $2.50. Not bad. Thus, it’s almost like that dime I found was a “super dime” worth 25 times face value! Of course, that’s based on the metal value, so we would have to sell the coin first before getting that purchasing power at stores. But, it’s a nice fun find nonetheless.

It’s not just dimes that have contained silver. Prior to 1965, quarters were 90% silver, as were half dollars. Find one of those, and you’re getting something with even more metal value than the aforementioned humble dime. After all, these other coins are heavier. Even some nickels had silver: some during the 1942-1945 time frame had silver, though far less than 90%. Nonetheless, those are clearly worth more in metal value than five cents

So, next time you see a coin looking a bit different – check the date on it. It doesn’t happen very often, but on rare occasions you just may be getting way more than change, in the form of precious metal instead!

My Questions for You:

Do you ever check dates on coins?

Have you ever found a silver coin in circulation?

If so, what did you do with it?

10 New Year’s Money Resolutions to Get Started on Now

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Dec 102012

New Year’s resolutions have become a normal part of life for many people, almost like an annual ritual. We make plans to transform ourselves beginning January 1, full of energy and excitement over what we can be. The sky is the limit!

Really, I do like the notion of getting excited about making positive moves, and like the energized feeling that seems to be in the air as the calendar hits January 1. Personally, I do make resolutions. Hope is such a great thing, and it can really keep people moving forward. Heck, for some people out there, it can simply keep them going.

That being said, there is something a little bit interesting about waiting until one particular day to make changes, and start (or re-start, in many cases) our quest to achieve goals. It’s almost like many of us just live it up doing whatever we want to do until the the December 31 New Year’s eve countdown ends, and we’re into the new year and things radically change immediately. I’ve seen this maybe 6 or 7 years ago, when the health club I belonged to got packed all of a sudden in the beginning of January. There was even a guy jogging – or struggling to jog - on an indoor track while he was wearing a shirt and tie. Clearly, he wasn’t used to health clubs or working out in general, and had just jumped right in to what was obviously a resolution of his. I do give him credit though, for taking positive steps.

Anyway, I suggest that we get a head start on our new year’s resolutions, and get things started now. Why not?

Of course our resolutions can be across all aspects of our lives. Here, I’ll list 10 new year’s money resolutions for people to consider:

1) Increase the percentage of your income that you save in your 401(k). If you’re maxing out, great! If not, how about setting a goal to increase this percentage by a realistic amount. If you’re investing 5% of your pre-tax income in a 401(k), try to push that to 10%.

2) Find 3 discretionary expenses to cut. Sure, we could go crazy over things to eliminate from our regular spending routine. Frankly, that might actually be a good thing for a lot of folks. For many of us though, we’re making reasonably good decisions in general – but probably have a few areas we could work on if we really looked at it enough. For me, it would be: cutting out one outside meal a week, cutting out any beverage purchases (soda, coffee) 3 days of the work week while subsituting water, and paring back on our cable plan. Nothing extreme, just a few cuts.

3) Fund a 529 account, if you’re a parent. Being a parent, and having opened a 529 account, I can see the value. Now, we can only do what we can do, and don’t want to forego our retirement to put in additional funds. However, as much as we can help with regard to college education, it will benefit our kids. If you already have a 529, perhaps try to bump up the savings - even if just a bit.

4) Focus on what’s important. Thinking about the 80/20 rule here. Yes, the Pareto Principle and money can be related. I’ve heard how 20% of customers might yield 80% of results. Well, If we focus on what’s truly most important, we are optimizing ROI of our time. Resolving to prioritize to-do lists weekly – or even daily – can help us stay focused and use our valuable time smartly.

5) Refinance your mortgage. If you don’t have a mortgage, this might mean diligently shopping for the best loan if you are going to be buying. If you do have a mortgage, there is no reason I can think of for most people to be carrying a loan that doesn’t have an extraordinarily low interest rate, as of this writing.

6) Try to exceed expectations at work. Our career, and professional reputation, can go a long way to determing our financial future. It’s good to focus on making sure that our jobs are to some degree protected, but also on advancement and career progression.

7) Set aside money for your next car purchase. Even if you’re years away from your next purchase, start saving now. Make a “car payment” to a separate car fund

8) Before purchasing something, ask ourselves if we really need it. I think at some base level, most of us probably know the difference between what we really need, and what we simply want. Or, at least I’d like to think that many folks get this. Even so, most of us slip up from time to time in terms of acting upon this knowledge.

9) Sometimes, just treat yourself and live in the moment. What? Am I contradicting what I just mentioned above? Perhaps, but in reality I mean that once in a while, we should just buy what we want as long as we aren’t breaking the bank. Perhaps getting that $5 coffee drink, or buying that outfit, or going to that game would provide you with a lot of enjoyment. Well, sometimes you just have to go do it. Life is short, let’s enjoy it. If we’re practical 100% of the time, why not cut back to 99%?

10) Look to find an opportunity to help someone in need. Sure, this can take on non-financial ways as well. But if we truly value money, and don’t like to part with it, then it’s making a sacrifice when we give to someone in need. Something reasonable can go a long way to help, and is especially nice to do when we expect nothing directly in return. When karma finds us later, we’ll be happy! As an adjuct to this, let’s make sure that we don’t get taken advantage of by moochers and freeloaders in other areas of our life.

My Questions for You

What do you think about the notion of getting a head start on new year’s resolutions?

Are any of these above applicable to you?

Do you have any others to add?

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