No More Mortgage Tip – Are you keeping an eye on your spending?
No More Mortgage Money Tip on watching your money.
Are you keeping an eye on your money and tracking what you spend and where? Somebody needs to and if you aren't doing it, who is going to? Does anyone else have a bigger stake in wiping out your debt and building the retirement you want and deserve than you do?
Here is a list of things you should be doing. There are many more than this, but here are some you need to be doing now.
- Go through your last bank statement and write down what each charge was for. This can be a really eye opening experience. Grab a cup of coffee or something to drink and go line by line. This exercise could save you money next month just by knowing what to watch for and where you seem to waste money without thinking about it.
- Group items together by making a note at the end of the item. Put food, utuilites, meals, clothes, etc. The total up these different categories and see if any of the totals surprise you.
- Now that you may or may not be surprised at where your money has been going, ask yourself if there is something you see that you could obviously cut back on.
- Take a look at the bank statement and see how much you paid toward debt, like credit card bills. How does that feel?
- Now take another look and see how much money you put toward your savings. Anything there?
- Take another look and see if you put anything towards an emergency fund. Or is your emergency fund a credit card? We can't do that. So if you don't have an emergency fund that would cover your needs for at least a month you should start putting money into one and then go back to adding to your savings every month.
- Do you have any major purchases or costs coming up in the next 2 years? Are you putting any money away for them?
- Ask yourself now if you are paying the minimum payments on your credit cards which the credit card company will happily let you do for the next 30 or so years.
Now this is an excellent exercise to learn a few things about your spending habits and you may very well find a few places here where you can cut back and not spend so much money on.
This is by no means a comprehensive list of what you should be doing and how to track your money. But its a good start to take a look at where your money is going and how much of it is going out vs what you have coming in.
Once you've done this you need to get a snapshot of how much it will cost to pay off all of your debt and how long that will take. You really need to know this if you want to make sure you are making wise decisions on your spending and your savings. Almost no one you know has a realistic number on how much they owe or when it will be paid off. To get it you have to figure in the interest on all of your debts along with the extra payments it will take to pay it off.
So here's a secret you can take advantage of. No More Mortgage will create an analysis of your debts for you that shows this and more and you can get it for free. As in no cost, and no obligation. Just free. All you have to do is ask. And you can order a free CD up on the left side of the page that will give you some great information on eliminating your debt.
You need to know how much debt you really have. Your statements don't tell you, they just show the principle balance. So get your numbers for free and see where you really stand.
Watch this video of a No More Mortgage team member below and then call them at 800.285.9102 and ask for a free debt analysis so you can make wise, informed decisions that will affect your future.
