By 2 Cents on January 15th, 2010 | Category: Budgets | If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
~ Lawrence J. Peter
Budget. Just uttering the word can make people cringe, squirm, and head for the hills. Even noted personal finance expert David Bachclaims that budgets don’t work. Rather, he says that we should “toss out the budget and make it automatic” using his (I think originally David Chilton’s) pay yourself first principle. The idea is that you would decide to save, say 10% of your pay and just live on whatever is left over.
I have 2 issues here. First, everybody needs some kind of budget. Second, even if you only pay yourself first, you are still practicing a form of budgeting, albeit a weak one. Mr. Bach has some good ideas, but I have to disagree with him on this point. Here are a few ways a budget – any [...]
Read on and enjoy … Do You Need a Budget?
By 2 Cents on January 14th, 2010 | Category: Money Psychology |  The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs.
~ Joe Girard
Update: This article made it into the editor’s top 5 picks in The Carnival of Personal Finance – Support Haiti Edition @ Million Dollar Journey. Thanks Frugal Trader!
Abraham Maslow is the psychologist best known for his hierarchy of needs. He basically postulated that humans need to have more basic needs fulfilled before we try to satisfy higher level needs. If we try to attain higher self-esteem while more basic needs like steady employment or a stable family life go unmet, we will feel uncomfortable and stressed out. This goes along with the idea that discomfort means change is required.
Now I am certainly not the first to draw a parallel between Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs and our financial needs. In doing the [...]
Read on and enjoy … Your Financial Hierarchy of Needs
By 2 Cents on January 13th, 2010 | Category: Book Reviews | Sometimes people who save their money are shown as the colorless folks, the conservative ones who don’t dare. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, people who save are the ones who dare to dream, the ones who have big ideas – and who make real plans to make those dreams happen. In our opinion, savers are the ones who taste life at its richest.
~ Elizabeth Warren & Amelia Warren Tyagi, All Your Worth, p. 182
I’ve read quite a few personal finance, investing, and trading books. Almost all of them provide some value. They often deliver similar messages in different ways. I have yet to read a few of the real classics, but they’re up next on my list and I’ll post some reviews as I finish them. Having said that, I would say that this is the best personal finance handbook I [...]
Read on and enjoy … Book Review: All Your Worth
By 2 Cents on January 8th, 2010 | Category: Life Balance | In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it. The ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one’s life.
~ Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured, 1927
Yesterday I posted Part I of Our Money Story. I would have preferred to keep the story to one post, and maybe I could have if I were 25 years old. But alas, I am 4 weeks away from my 40th birthday. When I left off, Mr. Cents and I were nearing the end of our first decade together. Next, the ground on which we tread began to move.
Mr. Cents was still working in a retail store, although he did not like it as much as he had liked his job as a buyer for the same company. An [...]
Read on and enjoy … Our Money Story: Part II
By 2 Cents on January 4th, 2010 | Category: Debt |  Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.
~ Oprah Winfrey
OK, so you overindulged. You read all of those articles warning about moderation or complete avoidance. You intended to follow that prudent advice. But you didn’t. I could easily be talking about alcohol consumption or debt consumption. Either way, over-consumption will put you in a precarious position.
If you’re not in that position on either front, congratulations. If you are, you’re not alone. Debt has been in the news a lot lately and if you read my post on 2010 What Ifs, you know that I think it will be a big topic this year. Sovereign debt problems are simmering in many parts of the globe and are coming to a full boil in others, particularly the PIIGS countries. This has led many to ask the question: Read on and enjoy … 6 Remedies For a Debt Hangover
By 2 Cents on December 31st, 2009 | Category: 20 Cents | 
This is a selection of 10 articles I thought you might find interesting from the month of December, 2009. This is by no means a comprehensive list, and there were lots more I could have included.
Fiscal Fizzle gave us some great information on How to Write a Great Financial Mission Statement. Ray at Financial Highway provided 7 Credit Score Myths you might not know about. Gail Vaz-Oxlade had a nice post titled Happy Is As Happy Does. It was a great reminder of the importance of attitude in everything we do. Tom over at Canadian Finance Blog asked Do You Have Enough Insurance On Your Home? This a good thing to reassess periodically. Rob Carrick at the Globe and Mail had a timely article on Why You Can, and [...]
Read on and enjoy … 20 Cents From December 2009
By 2 Cents on December 16th, 2009 | Category: Planning |  There are two ways to get enough: One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.
~ G.K. Chesterton
Anyone who writes or reads about personal finance has their own list of what it takes to become financially independent. Some of the best have really stood the test of time and have been used as a basis for many other such lists. Dave Ramsey’sBaby Steps are probably the best known version and, although I don’t agree with everything Mr. Ramsey says, you can’t go wrong following his basic principles. I don’t think that there can be just one definitive list. There are many ways to achieve the same goal.
The list I’m giving you here today is one that I came up with off the top of my head, and if I went through the same exercise again next [...]
Read on and enjoy … 10 Steps to Fiscal Fitness
|
|
Recent Comments