Today's lunch with a dear friend led to conversation about everything under the sun and eventually wound around to my favorite subject: money. She recently switched jobs and and now earns substantially more money than her last job. In spite of the increase in salary, she says she and her fiance can't seem to save money. "Money just seems to go and we still live paycheck to paycheck with nothing saved," she confessed.
Their situation is not unusaul and many people identify with this very struggle. She's at a prescious crossroad: she can either take control of her money now and start planning how to get ahead or she can continue along the same broken path.
Many people in her shoes resort to credit cards at this point to disguise their dissatisfaction with "not having enough money". Credit cards provide a solution for short-term spending but create more of a problem in the long run if not used correctly. But, if spending priorities are addressed during this precious time, there is still time to correct the problem and get ahead with your money. If you empathize with this scenario, here are some simple strategies to take control of your money: Pay yourself first, cutback on unnecessary spending, avoid bouncing checks or relying on a credit line. Take a hard look at your spending, your current priorties and identify where you want to be in a year, five, ten and so on. Having a vision for your money gives an individual, a couple, a family incentive to spend more selectively.
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