Peer pressure can wreck your finances. If you have friends that are carefree with their money, then you’re more inclined to spend more money than you intend just to hang out with them. Worse, though, you’re often spending too much money on things that you don’t need at the expense of limiting the things that you do need. For instance, you are more likely to spend a week’s worth of groceries on a single meal at a fancy restaurant. Or you might spend a week’s income on tickets for a music concert.
Ironically, you probably won’t enjoy these events as much as you’d like because you’ll fret about how you’re going to cover your basic living expenses. And, it’s especially awkward to say “No, I can’t afford that” to your affluent friends. It’s embarrassing, for example, to admit that what you view as “expensive” is something they consider a “bargain.”
One of the quickest ways to reduce your spending is to only carry cash with you when you go out with your friends. This will prevent you from spending the money you need to cover the rent, buy your groceries, or pay your phone bill.
Here are some other tips to improve your personal finances:
If you’re in debt, it’s easy to avoid taking any action to resolve it. Perhaps you procrastinate when your bills arrive, resulting in late fees; or pay less than the balance due, resulting in higher interest rates; or “forget” to pay your bills, resulting in calls from collectors and damage to your credit score. This, of course, is courting disaster.
One solution to get out of this mess is to apply for a debt consolidation loan. It combines all your existing debts into a single one. Instead of paying throughout the month on a plethora of debts for different amounts and due dates, you’ll simply pay off your loan.
A debt consolidation loan does more than simplify your billing process. You’ll also reduce the total amount of interest that you owe on your debts and pay them off faster. What’s more, you’ll only have to pay what you can consistently afford to pay every month.
SafePathAdvisors.com is a financing company that provides customers with a professional stress-free experience when applying for a debt consolidation loan. This firm works hard to determine what debt restructuring plan works best for each of their customers. Follow them on Facebook to learn more about the benefits of debt consolidation.
How to Get Good with Money
Assuming some people have a knack for making and managing money is an erroneous way of thinking. Getting good with money is a skill, a life skill that anyone can learn.
If your parents didn’t teach you about money when you were little and you never took a single class in high school or college about it, this doesn’t mean that it’s now too late to learn.
Although it’s difficult to know where to start, there is a wealth of information available on everything you should know about money.
Here, for instance, are three ways that you can put together a self-education program for yourself.
1. Places to go:
Frequent places online and offline that discuss personal finances. Online, you can read personal finance blogs, listen to personal finance podcasts, and watch personal finance YouTube channels. Offline, you can visit libraries and bookstores and join meetup groups.
2.Things to do:
Create a reading list of the best personal finance books. For instance, The Richest Man in Babylon is a series of parables set in ancient Babylon. Although published in 1926, this easy-to-read book written by George S. Clason is still in publication almost a century later.
3.People to meet:
You can join a free online community by taking courses on personal finance. For instance, MOOCs, the Massive Open Online Courses, are filmed classes taught at leading universities around the world. Find a few classes on personal finance to increase your financial literacy.
All things considered, you can quickly improve your financial situation by limiting how much you spend when you go out with your spendthrift friends, by taking proactive steps to eliminate your debt, and by incrementally increasing your financial literacy.