Saturday, September 29, 2007

Is shopping destroying your life?

In my last post I talked about the importance of having a monthly budget.

The shopping industry has grown, and there are many exciting outlets as well as many eye-catching flashy brands pf everything to choose from. Anyone who has even a little money will be tempted to go shopping. With women it may be buying the latest shade of makeup and with men the newest electronic gadget in town, or vice versa, no stereotypes intended. But most of the time, the items we buy on this kinds of trips end up sitting in our cupboards for eons without ever being used.

If we make a habit of shopping this way every month, what happens to our savings? Well, nothing positive. We are left with a big dent in our bank accounts, and a lot of unnecessary items in our closets - nice, but unnecessary.

Shopping needs to be restricted to only the things we need and also only to specific schedules. This way, you can keep a check on what you are spending monthly and can also put aside some amount towards savings.

When you buy things, you can schedule them for occasions, and can plan and put aside money every month for this purpose. Buying only essential things is a very important habit to develop. After you have saved enough money, and have planned your spending intentionally, you can buy luxurious things.

Don't just buy things to buy things. Think about what you're buying. Give it a day or two, and then come back to it. You may find the urge to shop is less and the item doesn't look as important as it did before.

I am going to be talking about the perils of impulse buying in a later post, but for now, think about your shopping habits, and if they are destroying your life. Do you have a shopping schedule?

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Sunday, September 23, 2007

Do you have a monthly budget?

I want to continue in the vein of my last post about accumulating wealth. At the beginning when I started this blog I told you that my aim was not just to teach you different methods of making money, but more importantly to teach you the principles of making money, and to get you to think about how to make money and how to be successful, and to make your moves thoughtfully. While I do expose different money-making ideas, I don't want you to lose sight of the principles and the thought that you need to put behind these methods for them to be successful for you.

In my last post I talked about the very basic principle of spending less than you make. This is a basic, simple principle, but it makes all the difference. So today I have a question for you... do you make a monthly budget? Do you have a written out plan of how your earnings are going to be spent, or do you wait to spend the money as you make it? Do you have a sense of what your monetary priorities are, of what you must do and what can wait?

Saving money is not something that everyone does. Very few people understand the importance of saving money and spending what you have wisely as well. I believe that one of our greatest enemies today is the credit card. It allows us to spend money anytime and anywhere, and millions of people fall into the trap. Here is the problem, when you use a credit card, you are spending money that you don't have. I will talk more about this later, so save that thought for now and process it.

Saving money is essential because we never know what will happen to the economy.

Whether you run a business of any kind, or are employed in some firm, drawing monthly budgets is safest way to protect ourself and ensure that you're not spending more than you make.

A good way to go about this, an algorithm if you wish, would be as follows: First, you need to determine if there are any outstanding bills to be paid. This includes the rent/mortgage, electricity, gas, and bank loans if there are any. Having taken care of this, check what is left. The second thing is to put something aside for your absolute necessities, food and other essential groceries. Most people live pretty routine lives, so you know how much you need for groceries each month. And if you don't, you can figure it out by keeping good records and receipts of your grocery shopping trips, removing all the non-essential luxury purchases, and then totalling how much you need for your necessary groceries each month.

From what is left you should put aside a good amount in savings, and choosing recurring deposits with banks is a great idea. You can indicate the amount so that the process is automated.

You can then use what is left over to treat yourself, to go luxury shopping, or entertain yourself. If the money is not much, you can choose entertainment that won’t cost you much. But you will do this securely knowing that you are saving for your future, that you're building your wealth, that you have something put away for a rainy day.

While it may not seem much at the beginning, you will find that if you are disciplines, your savings will start to grow and accumulate, and as you see this happen you will be more and more motivated to save more and to start investing and securing your future more.

Do you have a monthly budget?

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Thursday, September 20, 2007

Accumulating Wealth - the foundational principles

Today I came across a post in another blog (Seocracy) titled "How to accumulate Wealth." Isn't that an ambitious title?? That's what I thought too. I tend to avoid writings with such titles because more often than not the content is a scam, or an inflated idea with no merits or ground, or someone's attempt to make money by making you click on numerous affiliate links that lead nowhere. But I read this post simply because I respect Rob (the author) and he always writes really solid stuff about computer geek stuff, so I was curious to see what he had to say about accumulating wealth.

Remember at the very beginning of this blog I talked about taking a thoughtful approach to making money and how important this was? Well, this is one of those posts that reinforces what I said. Rob, in his post, takes a very traditional approach to thinking about money:

The secret to wealth is this: Spend less than you earn.

The more you earn and the less you spend, the richer you become.


Isn't that simple? And yet it is so true. This is one of the foundational principles to getting wealthy, spend less than you make. It's the basics!!

Rob goes on to explain that the reason people don't get wealthy is because they are more interested in appearing to be wealthy than they are in actually being wealthy. Isn't that interesting? Think about it... did you NEED that iphone... wouldn't your old Motorola have been just as good? Wouldn't the 2003 model got you from point A to B as easily as the newest coolest-looking model? I may be over-simplifying, but take some time and think about whether your own inherent need to appear to others that you're "doing well" is doing you in. This is what Rob says:

It’s because people don’t actually want to be wealthy. People want to appear wealthy. People want to make their friends and neighbors jealous. People want to live beyond their means.

It’s this overwhelming need to appear rich that keeps people from actually becoming rich. This is one of the top reasons why people aren’t wealthier. They get caught in this crazy cycle of spending and consuming, they fall for the marketing, buy the latest trends, need the newest cell phone, and guess what?? I bet those people have no clue of what their net worth really is, or even how to calculate it. These are people who will never become wealthy.


I could go on and on, but I really encourage you to read Rob's post. It will be eye-opening, I assure you.

Then I want you to do some thinking and some math, and think about what you can do different about your spending habits, and what difference it will make. Think about how much you make versus how much you spend.

I will be talking about this some more in the near future.

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Sunday, September 16, 2007

Money Maker Blogs Recommends...

Money Maker Blogs is a blog that brings together the different blogs, websites, and forums on the web about making money. I mentioned this website before as a nice way to get some exposure for your website or blog if you talk about making money.

The website now has an added feature called Money Maker Blog recommends... On this page, different money making programs, books, ideas, products, and more are reviewed to allow you to pick the best based on what you think of it and on other readers' votes. So if you want them to recommend something to you or for you, head on there and contact them to get your product or program reviewed.

And while there, remember to vote for this blog to increase our ranking.

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Friday, September 7, 2007

Join AuctionAds now and get $25!!

In a previous post I introduced you to AuctionAds as a way to make money using your website. Well, today I have some great news for you. AuctionAds is giving $25 to every new publisher who joins the program.

New publishers just need to sign up and they will receive a balance of $25.00 automatically.

Now who could turn down a great offer like this... Try AuctionAds and get your free $25. You have nothing to lose!

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Monday, September 3, 2007

Code4Gold Stops Paying for Posts

A while ago I recommended to you that you join Code4Gold forums and get paid for posting on the forums. Well, today I checked in and Code4Gold has decided to stop paying members for posting. The reasons given by the admins were:

#1) There is no E-Currency that accepts members from all of the countries of the world that is trustworthy.
#2) The PTP system has brought more troublemakers, cheaters and scammers than it's worth.
#3) The best members who bring real discussion here have never requested a PTP payout.
#4) I don't have time to check accounts, make payments and respond to the same PM's asking the same questions over and over again.
#5) The mods and I don't have time to chaase down postbuilders and then get attacked by them when they are caught.

I would like to have this forum exhibit quality over quantity and if it means losing members who are trouble and members who are willing to cheat for a few dollars it will be well worth it in the end for all of the people who come here to chat with friends and have a good time without having postbuilders interrupting conversations.

There are still many other PTP forums out there on the internet and their are new ones springing up every day.

So there it is! And yes, there are other PTP forums, and I will research them and bring them to you. In the meantime, we will continue to explore other methods of making money.

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