Top 5 Common Personal Finance Mistakes to Avoid

You can save money by reading about the top 5 common personal finance mistakes to avoid.

The first personal finance mistake to avoid is to invest in bonds. Many people think their money is safe in bonds, but the extra money percentage rate is so low that you will be better off putting your money into the stock market. Many retirees make the mistake of putting a lot of their money in bonds and end up losing money the last fifteen years invested.

Not saving enough money now for retirement. You want to live out your golden years in comfort, not struggling. You can get a job in your elder years that will benefit you tax-wise, but you want to have the choice of wanting to work versus having to work to survive. It is imperative that you plan ahead on how much you need to save now for your retirement. Think of all of the extra entertainment things you like to do now and ask yourself if you will be able to afford them when you are not working. If you love to travel, make sure you put in a lot of extra cash to continue to enjoy seeing the beautiful world.

Start early and teach your children how to earn and save money. Do not hand everything to your children for immediate gratification. In the real world children will not be able to have everything at a whim without earning it. Give your child an allowance and let him or her learn the value of money. He or she will see that it takes time to build up the amount of money needed to purchase a much wanted item of their choice. Let your child buy an item after they saved a few dollars if they think they have to have it. Then when the item your child really wants is right in front of them on the store shelf, he or she will wish they would have continued to save their money for it. This will teach children to make better decisions in the future with their money.

When you can, pay cash for items. Try to charge as little as possible, but if you do have to charge items on your credit card, pay the bill on time. Do not let something that cost you $1,000 end up costing you more than double. If it is something you do not need immediately, you can wait until you have enough cash to pay for the item or at the very least you will be able to pay off your credit card bill when the money is due.

The last of the top 5 personal finance mistakes to avoid is going into debt. Do not open an abundant amount of credit cards and start charging like there is no tomorrow. This can only bring trouble to your personal finance. Another mistake people make is to put all of their debt onto one low introductory rate credit card and keep charging up the bill. The ideal answer would be to put all of your debt into one area and continue to pay it off without charging and piling up more debt and stress in your life.

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