Thursday, May 20, 2010

pain is good

i heard something today that i thought was really good financial advice.

when it comes to money:
if if it hurts in the short term, it almost always works in the long term.
if it's easy in the short term, it almost always hurts you in the long term.

my main financial goal right now is to pay down my mortgage. i have gone through dave ramsey's steps of financial freedom, and these principles have been very good to me. this has taken a lot of hard work! but it has paid off - i am 29 years old; i don't have any debt except for my house, which i am paying down early; i am putting 15% of my income into retirement savings.

i remember a time, just after i graduated college - my dad told me he wanted to sit down & do up a budget with me. i was wholeheartedly against it. and lo, i didn't do a budget for several years! to me, a budget meant that i couldn't spend any money on anything that i wanted. several years later, i finally went to fpu & learned what a budget really was - deciding where all your money goes, instead of trying to remember what you all spent it on.

i like going through my budget and seeing how much extra money per month i can "find" if i do everything at the bare minimums; then taking all that "extra" and putting it into a calculator to see how quickly i can pay down my house. yes, i realize this makes me a nerd. :) my most recent calculations showed me paying off my house in 5 years. however... in order to do this, i'd have to continue having a roommate for the extra cash (which is NOT going to happen), i wouldn't ever do anything entertainment-wise outside the four walls of my house, and would have to eat mac & cheese and hot dogs the entire time. oh.. and nothing in my house (or car) could ever break. not so realistic! however, it does motivate me into remembering to watch my frivolous spending because i'm reminded that it all adds up!

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