You want to buy everything on your mental, happiness list. You can't. You can save for some of those things though. Try to start understanding happiness, not in terms of what you can buy, but in the financial freedom you are establishing for yourself by preparing for the future and emergencies and staying out of debt. Begin to see happiness in building a financial base that helps you take control over your life. It is good collateral.
Assets
Assets are hard to acquire on a tight budget but are desirable to obtain. Acquisition of assets like cars, property, bank funds, retirement plan savings, shows the bank that you can be trusted with money; you've used your funds wisely. This position can help when you are in need of a loan from a financial institution.
Financial Freedom
This is the dream and it can be done. It is a hard objective to reach for sure, but with proper planning, saving and spending, one can attain it. Yes, many people are either in debt or are not in a great position to retire on time. Many people today are underfunded or will have to work a few extra years before retiring on a low end retirement plan. There are two ways to go about this and neither will be easy.
The first way may seem like the easiest way and for the most part it is the easiest way. There are many investment or insurance companies that will help you including your bank. They have varieties of plans that will build up the amount of funds necessary such that one day you will have enough to stop working. The only problem with these plans is the amount of funds that they expect people to put up each chosen period (usually monthly). It takes a lot of money in regular installments to attain such freedom. If a family can put aside enough funds in such an account it will certainly be worth it when the time comes to retire.
The second way to do it is DIY (do it yourself). This takes some learning and hard work to save enough money to attain financial freedom and you must realize there are differing levels of success. Using a budget program with calculators, properly planning family goals, living within your means, using great spending habits, staying away from bad debts, saving wisely, learning to invest and not straying from the budget are some of the main necessities to success. There are many issues to overcome as well. It requires keeping a constant income, not getting into any bad debt and keeping a good enough emergency fund to withstand such setbacks. These are ways to help ensure your financial dreams flow smoothly. If need be, making a few adjustments such as downsizing or missing a few objectives should still be ok.
Emergencies need heading
Everyone wants to save for other things but it is the unknown that can really hurt your finances if not planned for. It is always unpopular but it will always happen. Best to be well prepared.
Emergencies: You cannot avoid them! The loss of a job, a disability, the sickness of a loved one or getting your car stolen! Something is going to happen to you and it will cost you!
Please prepare. We know that an emergency can leave you financially barren. Work emergencies into your monthly budget, set aside money to cover such an event. Pay this like a bill. Never look at this money until truly needed. It is not for any other frivolous desires.
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Investing need heading
Your Budget Plan is not a financial institution. The following information is from experience only. To understand more about such a complex subject please check out some of our links.
While the basic ideas behind investing are easy, successful investing is far harder to figure out for the average person. It actually seems like some people have a talent for it while others don’t.
Investing is by far the hardest component of budgeting. There are so many books and information on the internet but the fact remains, it is very tough to understand it all. Why, because so much of the array of investment options available and investing is guessing future values. While it is known that the market goes up over time, individual stocks don't. They can go up or down in value.
links: these sites are loaded with various bits of information but being that it is investing some may be overkill for some people. Don't try to read it all and understand everything. Pick the subjects you're interested in and learn from it. Watch out for the advertisements. They are not learning tools. They are there to entice you to buy a product or spend money on a stock. Be very wary of all investment ads. need to make into links
- http://www.marketwatch.com/lazyportfolio/howto
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market
- http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/investing.asp
from canada:
- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/
- http://twocents.lifehacker.com/how-to-build-an-easy-beginner-and-forget-... 1686878594
- http://.mbsecurities.ca/get-informed/pubs/basic_investing_brochure.pdf
- http://canadiancouchpotato.com/couch-potato-faq/
- http://www.moneyunder30.com/how-to-invest
note to people learning about investing: many articles or books have similar information - just written with a different slant. Don't buy a dozen books as they may have similar info. Pick just one that looks good to start with. There is lots of information on the internet as well.