5 Things I've Been Doing Regarding Money Management
Mid-morning, last Friday, I logged into my trading account and finally decided to bite the bullet and sold all my account positions. I have to tell you, this has been a long-time coming as the market has been so bad lately, but I have decided to follow my gut and pull out completely in an effort to salvage what's left in my accounts and have something in there later to re-invest once the market starts to turn. I had already sold the bulk of my positions, but had a few I was waiting on, hoping on, etc. that would turn a bit higher for me to sell so the hit wasn't so big. Unfortuanately, that didn't happen so I ended up selling with a major loss on my final few positions...and it really sucked!
I share this story because this is the situation so many of my family and friends in are in. I told this same story while talking to an associate of mine today, who will remain nameless, and her response to me was..."man I wish I would have done just that and sold on Friday". She lost significantly more today and was all the more devastated with her overall loss in the market in the last 90 days. Because this situtation is being faced by so many, I am always also hearing from friends and family their latest "money saving techniques" including coasting in their cars to hypermile, reusing paper plates, and my personal favorite...not showering as often as this saves on all those items you use to shower (personally, I hope I never get to that level and yes, I do have some wierd friends). The last weeks event have inspired me to write this post on 5 things I'm doing to save, so here we go.
1. As a family, we are eating at home more often. To help this work well, my wife has been going to those prep meal places where you make like 20 frozen meals in one afternoon. Then she sticks them in the freezer and it only takes an hour or so for most to bake and only about 5 min. prep time. We often find the left overs feed us for another meal or two as well.
2. We are traveling together on errands and the like. Instead of both driving in similar directions we are going together and thus making a circle of it. This has helped us save on gas and other vehicle expenses.
3. We are using a household budget software to make sure we know where our money is at the moment and what budget we have left to use for specific things. Finicity offers this money management software and it is truely the only one of its kind. We have used many and really prefer this one.
4. We have forgone on some vacation oppertunities that have approached us in the last coming months and that were there in the next few months. We love to travel, but had to real in our personal budget for travel and have noticed this has given us a little extra spending cash at home, while also helping us save some as well.
5. We have spent more time doing family activities that involve time together instead of going out to eat or going to a store, shop, entertainment location, etc. This has done two things for us; helped us save a little money, and give us more time to bond as a family. We have done silly things like bike races, and other things such as sitting around a camp fire together.
Now, I think those 5 things are things that anyone can do instead of going without a shower! Hopefully this helps and inspires someone else to save a bit more.
