What are the most useful money investment and saving tricks?
Today I want to answer a question about useful money investment and saving tricks.
There are a couple of things that you need to think about when it comes to your personal finances:
- Always try to save some of your income. I know that this is not always feasible, but for an average month, you should be able to put 10 percent or more away. Try to use the Warren Buffet method of saving where he deducts the savings from the income and gets his expenses instead of deducting expenses from the income to end up with his savings. This is a better way to think about it.
- There are fundamental reasons why you want to invest a part of your income and try to think about those at all times. The two main reasons are that you want to earn a decent amount on your investment while keeping the principal safe.
With that out of the way we can now begin to look at the specifics.
What are some good ways to save money?
a. Don’t keep a credit card. It may be convenient to be able to buy what you want at all times, but in the end it’s not worth it because you are paying a huge premium for that luxury.
b. Instead try to attach your salary to a debit card in a savings bank. That way, each dollar, euro or rupee you spend will come directly from your savings account. This not only saves the extra fees you pay for with a credit card but also allows you to directly control your spending.
c. Increase your salary. If you feel that your earnings are too small compared to your expenses, you need to find extra income. There is no way around it. The good news is that you can do this quite easily. If, for instance, you live in a house, I can guarantee you that there’s loads of stuff just lying around. You can sell it at Ebay.
How do I best invest my money?
As I’ve mentioned here before, the best way to invest your if you are not interested in the ups and downs of the stock market is to buy an Index Fund. An Index Fund is cheap – you will only pay between 0.1 percent and 0.2 percent a year in fees – and you will always stay exposed to the market. Over time the price difference will pay off and you will become rich.
You also need to protect a portion – I would say about 10 percent – from inflation. Now the classical method of doing this is by investing in physical gold, but nowadays there are Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that you can buy.
However, you don’t have to buy gold, but can buy Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) instead. The return of those are indexed to inflation so that will receive a higher return with higher inflation.
Conclusion:
Today I’ve been talking about different saving tricks by not paying for a credit card and by attaching your salary to a debit card instead. That way you will more control on your personal finances.