What are your financial goals for 2012? Maybe you want to go on vacation, fund your emergency savings so that unplanned expenses don’t set you back, repay debt so that you don’t feel the burden of living paycheck-to-paycheck, put more money into retirement and college savings, help your family more, give more to charity. But you are wondering how you are going to be able to accomplish goals if there doesn’t seem to ever be enough money to go around. Here is my quick down-and-dirty list of things that you may be able to do to increase cash flow into your home this year.
- Follow a budget and track spending, so that you know where your money goes and you have limits when you shop.
- Tear up credit cards and use cash. Research indicates that people that use plastic end up spending more money than those that don’t- it is a psychological thing.
- Refinance your home now that interest rates are lower than ever, and a lower rate could lower your payment. Be careful, take your time before pulling the trigger, read this post for more information.
- Consolidating debt into one payment is tempting, but only do it if you lower interest rates and you promise to not borrow any more mony until this is repaid. Statistics prove beyond a doubt that loan consolidators are soon in more debt, or they end up with a bad consolidation deal.
- Change tax withholding if you usually get a tax refund. Talk to your tax advisor about the right amount of exemptions for you to take that make sense for you. Your paycheck will go up, and you can use that money for important things.
- Shop for lower insurance rates, this may save you $20 – $100 per month.
- Eliminating debt will free up mony that used to go to creditors now you can use it to save for future needs.
- Become a more frugal shopper by using coupons and other means. Your local library has dozens of books about how to save money. We like anything by Mary Hunt of Debt Proof Living.
- Cut back on your Cell phone data and time usage.
- Reduce cable to basic or eliminate all together until you are back to where you need to be.
- Lower your real estate taxes, start by calling your county auditor and talk with them about how you can go about adjusting the valuation of your home down for real estate tax assessment purposes.
- Downsize your home or automobile if you can, this will help you have lower payments, maintenance and utilities.
- Obtain a second part-time job.
- Do freelance or side work. This has been helpful to me, in the past I painted a friends barn and did other work, and now I do freelance writing.
