HOW I STOPPED BEING BROKE AND SAVED MY FIRST $1,000

HOW I STOPPED BEING BROKE AND SAVED MY FIRST $1,000 

(A Month-byMonth Guide)

http://www.thepennyhoarder.com/how-to-save-money-when-youre-living-paycheck-to-paycheck/?aff_id=4&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid&payout=.08

Month 1 –

I know… I know… For a lot of our readers, the thought of saving money when you’re living paycheck to paycheck is a joke.

It’s not that working people don’t want to save; it’s just that too many of us are struggling with trying to pay the rent and put gas in the car. By the time the month is over, there’s nothing left to save.

So I’m not going to lecture anyone on the importance of saving, but let me share some tips on how I broke the “paycheck to paycheck” cycle…

Open an online savings or checking account and deposit $5. Heck, roll your quarters if you have to.

There are a bunch of great online banks, but one of my favorites is Aspiration because they offer an interest rate that is around 100x what a normal bank offers, plus there are no monthly fees.

You can open a savings account at your local bank, but my suggestion is to go with an online bank. You’ll be less likely to withdraw the money.

I know it doesn’t seem worth it to deposit only a few bucks, but getting started is an extremely important first step! Just trust me.

Month 2 –

This month I want you to save $15 in your new savings account. Again, if you can do more, awesome!

If you need a little help earning an extra $15, check out Paribus. It’s a tool that searches your emails for companies that owe you money.

It’s free to sign up for Paribus and once you do, they will scan your email archives for any receipts. If it discovers you’ve purchased something from Amazon, Target, or one of the other 16 retailers listed on their website, it will track the item’s price and issue you a refund anytime there’s a price drop!

You don’t have to do anything!

Need a different idea?

Another great way to earn $15 is with InboxDollars. They will actually pay you to watch videos! There are hundreds of them — cooking videos, sport replays, news, and more. Plus, they give you $5 just for signing up.

Month 3 –

Our goal is work up to saving $100/month in the savings account. I know that seems lofty, but I’m going to help you earn that extra $100/month.

For this month, I just want you to try and put away $35 in the account.

I’ve had good success making extra money with these two market research companies: Swagbucks & VipVoice. These panels will pay you for your opinions on politics, movies, etc. If you sign up for both, you should easily make an extra $35/month (most surveys pay between $3-$4 each for 20 minutes of your time). Heck, sometimes I fill them out while I’m watching Netflix.

Need a different idea?

Another easy way to earn $35 is with Smart Panel. If you install their free app on your smartphone, they’ll pay you $15 after only two weeks of it being installed. And they’ll continue to pay you $5/month forever.

There are also a ton of different ways to make extra money on this site, so start poking around the archives.

Congrats! You’ve saved your first $55. That’s something to be proud of!

Month 4 –

Alright, this month it’s time to try and put away $100. Daunting, I know. But I’ve got a few ideas that might help…

– Try selling some of your old stuff online. For books, use a site like Bookscouter.com and they’ll compare 30+ different buyback sites and tell you which one is willing to pay the most for your books.

– You can try our list of 16 Companies giving away $1,810.25. These companies want you to try them out and they’ll pay you to do so. Some of them are easier than others, but just check it out.

– Or how about mystery shopping? Before I became a blogger, I was a full-time, professional mystery shopper. And I got pretty good at it – earning around $5,000/month. Here’s a list of the companies that I worked for. (None of them will charge you money to sign up. And if a mystery shopping company ever tries to charge you, it’s a scam. Stay away from those.)

I know a lot of people are already working two jobs, but mystery shopping can be a way of earning money and relaxing with your friends/family at the same time. My favorite are the restaurant mystery shops – you get a free meal and you get paid! 

Month 5 – 12 –

Continue saving $100/month for the entire year. We want your year-end account balance to be $950.

Here are some ideas on how to make an extra $100/month:

How to Make $750/Month Selling Used Books

Get Paid $50 to Write a Guest Post

What’s in Your Fridge? Get Paid to Share…

How to Make an Extra $50/Week Working for Amazon.com

How to Get Paid $200/Month Testing Websites

Year 2 –

It’s important to continue saving at least $100 each month. Use your regular paycheck for living expenses and save any extra money you make from the ideas on this website.

Once you’ve reached year 2, you’ve saved nearly $1,000. At this point, my suggestion would be to open an IRA. Lending Club happens to be my favorite (because I’m earning 14%/year), but anywhere will do.

Just one more piece of motivation. If you can continue to save $100/month for the next 20 years (at 14% interest), you’ll end up with $106,022! Can you imagine? More than $100,000 in a bank account! 

You can do this. End the cycle today.

Good luck Penny Hoarders!

Disclosure: We appreciate you letting us include affiliate links in this post. It helps keep the beer fridge stocked in the Penny Hoarder break room.

Sent from my iPhone

http://richhabits.net/will-your-child-be-rich-or-poor/

Will Your Child be Rich or Poor? 15 Poverty Habits Parents Teach Their Children

When I travel the country speaking to high school and college students about exactly what they need to do to become financially successful in life I always begin my presentation by asking three questions:

“How many want to be financially successful in life?”

“How many think they will be financially successful in life?”

Almost every time I ask the first two questions every hand rises in the air. Then I ask the magic third question:

“How many have taken a course in school on how to be financially successful in life?”

Not one hand rises in the air, ever. Clearly every student wants to be successful and thinks they will be successful but none have been taught by their parents or their school system how to be financially successful in life. Not only are there no courses on basic financial success principles but there are no structured courses teaching basic financial literacy. We are raising our children to be financially illiterate and to fail in life. Is it any wonder that most Americans live paycheck to paycheck? That most Americans accumulate more debt than assets?  That many Americans lose their homes when they lose their job? Is it any wonder that most Americans cannot afford college for their children and that student loan debt is now the largest type of consumer debt?  

What’s worse is what our children are being taught by their parents, the school system, politicians and the media. They are teaching our children that the wealthy are corrupt, greedy, have too much wealth and that this wealth needs to be redistributed. What kind of a message do you think that sends to America’s future generation? It is teaching them that seeking financial success by pursuing the American Dreams is a bad thing. The Occupy Wall Street movement was a manifestation of this “wealth is bad and needs to be redistributed “mindset. . 

Here are some statistics from my five-year study on the daily habits that separate the wealthy from the poor?

1. 72% of the wealthy know their credit score vs. 5% of the poor
2. 6% of the wealthy play the lottery vs. 77% of the poor
3. 80% of the wealthy are focused on at least one goal vs. 12% of the poor
4. 62% of the wealthy floss their teeth every day vs. 16% of the poor
5. 21% of the wealthy are overweight by 30 pounds or more vs. 66% of the poor
6. 63% of the wealthy spend less than 1 hour per day on recreational Internet use vs. 26% of the poor
7. 83% of the wealthy attend/attended back to school night for their kids vs. 13% of the poor
8. 29% of the wealthy had one or more children who made the honor roll vs. 4% of the poor
9. 63% of wealthy listen to audio books during their commute vs. 5% of the poor
10. 67% of the wealthy watch 1 hour or less of T.V. per day vs 23% of the poor
11. 9% of the wealthy watch reality T.V. shows vs. 78% of the poor
12. 73% of the wealthy were taught the 80/20 rule vs. 5% of the poor (live off 80% save 20%)
13. 79% of the wealthy network 5 hours or more per month vs. 16% of the poor
14. 8% of the wealthy believe wealth comes from random good luck vs. 79% of the poor
15. 79% of the wealthy believe they are responsible for their financial condition vs. 18% of the poor

The fact is the poor are poor because they have too many Poverty Habits and too few Rich Habits. Poor parents teach their children the Poverty Habits and wealthy parents teach their children the Rich Habits. We don’t have a wealth gap in this country we have a parent gap. We don’t have income inequality, we have parent inequality. 

Parents and our schools need to work together to instill good daily success habits as follows:

• Limit T.V., social media and cell phone use to no more than one hour a day.

• Require that children to read one to two educational books a month.

• Require children to aerobically exercise 20 – 30 minutes a day.

• Limit junk food to no more than 300 calories a day.

• Require that children set monthly, annual and 5-year goals.

• Require working age children to work or volunteer at least ten hours a week.

• Require that children save at least 25% of their earnings or gifts they receive.

• Teach children the importance of relationship building by requiring them to call friends, family, teachers, coaches etc. on their birthdays and to send thank you cards for gifts or help they received from anyone.

• Reassure children that mistakes are good not bad. Children need to understand that the very foundation of success in life is built on learning from our mistakes. 

• Punish children when they lose their tempers so they understand the importance of controlling this very costly emotion.

• Teach children that seeking financial success in life is good and is a worthwhile goal. Children need to learn what the American Dream is and that it is something to be pursued in life.

• Children need to learn how to manage money. Open up a checking account or savings account for children and force them to use their savings to buy the things they want. They need to learn that they are not entitled to things like cell phones, computers, fashionable clothes, flat screen T.V.s etc. 

• Require children to participate in at least two non-sports-related extracurricular activities at school or outside of school.

• Parents and children need to set aside at least an hour a day to talk to one another. Not on Facebook, or on the cell phone, but face to face. The only quality time is quantity time

• Teach children how to manage their time. They should be required to create daily “to do” lists and these lists need to be monitored by parents. The goal should be to accomplish at least 70% of their tasks on their daily “to do” list.

Wealthy people do certain things every single day that sets them apart from everyone else in life. Wealthy people have good daily success habits that they learned from their parents. These daily habits are the real reason for the wealth gap in our country and the real reason why the rich get richer. Unless we teach our children good daily success habits, and level the playing field, the rich will continue to get richer and the poor will continue to get poorer.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you want to find out if you are teaching your kids the right habits find out here: RICH HABITS TEST PARENTS

If you are interested in helping your kids, grand kids or students succeed in life check out my award winning book, Rich Kids – How to Raise Our Children to be Happy and Successful in Life.

Sent from my iPhone