Debt-Free Forever Gail Vaz-Oxlade (best ereader for epub TXT) 📖

the mortgage, you probably really enjoy having a home you can call your own. And while grocery prices may be squeezing your ability to buy a new whatever, it’s nice to know you don’t have to subsist on Kraft Dinner and wieners. Perspective is everything. Knowing your parameters—read “having a budget”—means you can work within those parameters to make every dollar you have really count.

Shift your attitude so that the things you need also become the things you want. Say aloud, “The things I am spending my money on are the things I want the most.” Now it won’t be about what you don’t have, and your budget won’t feel like drudgery or something that restricts how you spend. Instead, it’ll be about keeping the things that you truly value front and centre in your mind so you continue to enjoy them, instead of taking them for granted.

REVIEW YOUR BUDGET FREQUENTLY

When you first make a budget, you should also make a date to review it in about eight weeks so you can see what’s working and what’s not. With a little tweaking based on your experiences with the budget, you can create a plan that really works for you.

Often, as we get comfortable living on a budget, we also get complacent and our costs start to rise. Review your budget at least twice a year. Look at your previous last month’s spending to see whether it is still in line with your planning. Have food or gas prices risen significantly? Do you have to trim in some areas to rebalance your budget? Are there other changes that have taken place since you did your budget—new children’s activities, increases in fees, an increase in utility costs—that you need to incorporate officially?

Your budget has to be up to date if it’s going to act as an accurate guide. The thing about a budget is that it not only shows you where you’re planning to spend your money, it asks you to make choices every time you get the urge to spend. Want to go out for dinner? If you don’t have any more money left in your entertainment budget, will you use your food budget or your transportation budget to grab some sushi? It isn’t about not having the sushi. It’s about what else you’re willing to give up to be able to go out for dinner. You can only use your budget as a guide to spending your money wisely if that budget is current. Get in the habit of tracking your spending and re-evaluating your budget so you’re always working with an up-to-date plan.

It’s a lot harder to spend willy-nilly when you’re on a budget because you’ve accounted for where the money is going, down to the last red cent. If you find a category isn’t working because there’s not enough in it, then you can figure out where to cut from another category to make the budget balance.

Not everyone is prepared to be a grown-up and spend money consciously. Some people like the rush of spending on a whim. If you’re married to one of these people, a budget can be a marriage saver, since it will reduce arguments about money. The budget serves as your guide, so if you and your partner are having a skirmish over whether to buy something, you can always fall back on “Not until we put it in the budget.”

As I’ve often said, managing money isn’t rocket science. And it isn’t magic. It’s discipline. You must decide that you will live on what you make. You have to be determined to do whatever it takes to get your consumer debt—your credit cards and your lines of credit—paid off in three years or less. And you must be committed to putting some money away for the future.

Wouldn’t it be nice to go to bed at night and not be awoken by the spectre of debt, rattling its chains and threatening your family’s safety and security? Wouldn’t it be great to buy something new and fresh and fun with the full confidence that you can pay the bill when it arrives? And wouldn’t it be lovely to know, that having hit a wall, you have the financial resources to cope?

You can have everything you want. All you need is a plan. And how do we spell plan? B-U-D-G-E-T!

MAKE CREDIT WORK FOR YOU

While my main mantra is Debt-Free Forever, and you’ve been busting your butt to get there, that doesn’t mean credit is an evil thing that must be avoided at all costs. You can use credit to make things work for you. What you must avoid is turning that potentially useful credit into a yoke of bad debt that stifles your budget and cramps your style. As long as you understand how credit works, and the role it can play in bringing your goals to fruition, you can use credit to your advantage.

A Word About Your Credit Score

Credit score! Credit score! CREDIT SCORE! Everyone is so obsessed with having the highest possible credit score. The reason: your credit score not only affects your ability to get credit, it affects the interest rate you will pay if you do. The better your score, the lower your risk to a lender (or the more profitable you are), and the lower the interest rate you’ll have to pay.

Knowing your credit score is important when you’re trying to borrow money and when you’re trying to negotiate a better interest rate on your debt. Not knowing your credit score means you’re ignorant about something that can have a huge impact on your financial life.

Your credit score is a number that is calculated based on a bunch of factors lenders use to decide whether to lend to you. The FICO score is a credit score developed by Fair Isaac & Co., which began its pioneering work with credit scoring in the late 1950s. The point of the score is to consolidate a borrower’s credit history into a single