Here's an article chock-full of money saving and wealth building tips from one of our readers, Suzanne Spiers. Suzanne, thank you and readers enjoy! Suzanne writes:
"I was once in deep credit debt and it took approximately 10 years to sort out the problems to become debt-free. Being debt-free means that you can begin wealth creation.
"Find a worthy cause and endeavour to give 10% of your income. You will not end up poorer. Every year I increase my giving and my wealth is growing and not suffering. It is a spiritual principle and it works.
"If you are out somewhere and you see something that you 'just have to have', pretend to buy it in your mind; don't say to yourself that you can't have it. Then go home and imagine yourself with the item. If after one week, you still want the item, then buy it with cash. If the purchase was an impulse buy, the immediate pressure of the initial desire will have vanished. Paying actual cash means that you get to feel the pain of the spend. Buying with plastic looks and feels easy and before you know it, you've spent far more than you intended. Save up for what you want. If you don't have the cash, then learn to put your impulses on hold. You will be paying off the item that you bought on credit for more years than you would like to imagine and end up in a debt trap if you are not careful. What would have taken a year to save for, you will be paying off when the item may be worn out, even 5 years later.
"Put $2.00 in a jar each day. Do not feel obliged to put in more, because then you will feel discouraged if you can't keep up. Most everyone can manage $2.00 a day. Before long, you will have $100.00 which you can use to save or put towards bills and in the meantime, you will have the satisfaction of watching the coins grow. At the end of each week, put all of the silver coins (in Australia we have 50c, 20c, 10c and 5c coins) into a money box. When the box is full you will have enough to pay a bill or save.
"Find an on-line account that pays interest of at least 5%. You will enjoy watching the monthly interest grow and compound over time. When I was saving for a property, I was getting $100.00 every month in interest. I now have purchased another, better property and even with my mortgage, I have saved over $16,000 since I bought the property in February, 2005. I now receive over $50.00 in interest each month.
"When you have a couple of thousand saved, look to buy a small parcel of blue-chip shares. I buy some shares with some money from my tax returns occasionally and one lot that I bought for $2.25 per share some years ago are now worth $11.00 each.
"Pay yourself first. When I get my pay, I pay $300 straight into my on-line savings account. You soon get used to what you have to spend and don't miss what you don't have. You also have the pleasure of saving for assets that will grow over time. Assets gain value and do not include things that depreciate like cars. Even if you regularly put even $50 per fortnight or even less if that is what you have, at least you will be saving something.
"Do your best to live on less than you earn. The human tendency is to spend up to the value of what we earn. If you resist this tendency, you can grow your wealth.
"These are some of the things that I do and I have come from the position of being a single mother on welfare, to a person who is growing wealth responsibly."
Regards
Suzanne from Western Australia
