This is actually the not to do list. This is the way to the dark side of becoming financially independent. If you find yourself doing any the things listed here, immediately stop yourself.

1. Apply for all those cool credit cards like free miles, points and cash rewards. These are good in limited numbers like a maximum of two of these combined.
2. Apply for any credit card that does not give you anything back.
3. Take your credit card and max it out to buy unnecessary things for crazy luxury or to impress your friends.
4. Pay your bills late and then pay late fees.
5. If you have big bills, at least try to pay the minimum payment.
6. Wait till a unpaid bill goes to a collection agency.
7. Don’t pay your landlord or mortgage because you want to buy that sweet new current year vehicle. My friends dad told him “You can’t live in a car and if you could, how long do you think that will last?”
8. Try to runaway from your taxes.
9. Payday loans are for emergency funds in which you pay back high interest rates. Instead create your own emergency fund of about 6 months worth of emergency money.
10. Pride, think you don’t need to budget and put away some side money. Listed as pride but it can be listed as poor thinking.

If you are guilty of any of these things, please call a financial adviser!

LoL, I had fun posting this little folly list because I am happy to report that I am no longer doing these things any more.

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I was very fortunate to always get what I wanted when I was growing up. All I had to do was say I wanted something and sure enough I would get it. That made me into an impulsive buyer when I became an adult. I never looked for sales and therefore money just trickled out of my savings account.

I am not going to talk about looking for coupons or impulsive buying. When you work so hard to save money into a savings account you want to keep it there.

Save Money and Keep your Saved Dollars

1. Create a personal budget – very important first step. The best way to save money is to trim what doesn’t need to be spent.
   • Depending on your income and expenses you will know a reasonable number to set aside solely for savings. Declaring a realistic figure like $25-$50 per week or maybe even bi-weekly.The point is something is always better then nothing so don’t get discouraged if it seems like a small amount.
2. The 3 Bank Account Difference – the 3 accounts all serve a distinctive purpose.
   • Spending Account – this account can be a checking or savings account. This account will receive paychecks and will take the role of dealing with daily expenses. This one is okay to have an ATM card in order to withdraw money for day to day activities.
   • Rainy-day/Emergency Fund Account – this will be your emergency blanket. This will cover any unforeseen emergencies. Job loss, car repairs, household repairs, house tax increases and so on.This account should have no ATM card and should be emergency use only.
   • Savings Account – this account also should not have and ATM card and you will not transfer out money from this account for day to day purposes or things like groceries and so on.I use currently use Paypal’s money market account for this and I also use Sharebuilder money market account.
3. Fill up Emergency Funds Account – this account should be filled up before the savings account.As a rule of thumb try to save enough to cover all of your expenses for at least the next 6 months or do like me and save enough for 10 months
4. Save Money Now – when you have a nice emergency fund setup and ready only then would you start saving.Try to set an automatic transfer that occurs every two weeks or every month. Automatic transfers makes sure that you do it and you never have to worry about remembering.I picked up this from David Bach and his Automatic Millionaire book.

No worries about tracking where your money goes and wondering if you put money in.

That’s it to automatic savings and novice budgeting.

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To become financially independent you will first need a road map that will help you attain that level of independence. I have been playing around with some methods and I found that these were some good methods to help me out. A good road map should help you get out of debt, invest, budget and plan for retirement.

Making Money Methods

• Set Goals – What do you want to do? Make money, attack debt or plan for retirement. Hopefully you will like to do all of these things at once. I planned to set my goal to increase wealth and in that respect to increase wealth.
• Read Personal Finance – Read every web article, book and subscribe to personal finance magazines.
• Track Spending – Track all of your expenses so you can see where your money is going. I realized that I spent about $60 per week at Duane Reade. You know that was cut later on.
• Cut Expenses – This goes hand in hand with tracking expenses. You then analyze where you spend too much and then trim them out of your budget.
• Decrease Debt – Start cutting down credit card debt. Start with the smallest debt then work your way up to the big ones. Shop around better interest rates then call up your current credit card and tell them to rate you can get and see if they will negotiate. If they do fine but if not then transfer the debt to the new one and close the old credit card immediately. Cut your total credit cards down to 2 maximum cards.
• Extra Income – Look into alternate streams of income. I use dividend stocks, Google Adsense, web advertisement, regular 9 to 5 job, high yield money market account for liquid money, rent house/apartment.
• Purchase Stock – I would say to purchase dividend stock because they increase per share and they still function as stock.
• Purchase Property -By purchasing a property, you increase your wealth automatically and fast. You force yourself to save and properties increase with inflation.

This simple but highly effective methods are so simple when you think about it, but highly effective. These cover making money, removing credit card debt, gaining extra income, cutting expenses with a tighter budget and planning for retirement by learning steps to increase wealth.

Popularity: 53% [?]