111–120 of 195 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certainly it's good to increase your revenue, but saving money is often much more valuable; a dollar saved is $1.4 earned, assuming you live somewhere with a high marginal tax rate.
Whenever I've had cashflow problems in the past, for me, spending less was never the solution. Having a good idea (and thus, making more money) always was.
Saving money is primarily a mindset. Tools might help but in my opinion they are absolutely not needed. Reading http://earlyretirementextreme.com/manifesto.html helped me to get the "saving money mindset" into my bones more than any other resource.
$ ledger reg Expenses:Personal:Food -b 2016.06.01 -e 2016.06.30
16-Jun-03 Pita Gyros Expenses:Personal:Food € 10.00 € 10.00
16-Jun-04 Pizza Expenses:Personal:Food € 35.00 € 45.00
16-Jun-09 Pita Gyros Expenses:Personal:Food € 10.00 € 55.00
16-Jun-10 Greek Tavern Expenses:Personal:Food € 25.00 € 80.00
Saving money is primarily a mindset. Tools might help but in my opinion they are absolutely not needed. Reading http://earlyretirementextreme.com/manifesto.html helped me to get the "saving money mindset" into my bones more than any other resource.
Now I've done it again and will spend 2 years driving around Africa.
By far the number one question I get asked is how do I save money to do all of this - it's become a huge topic of discussion.
I wrote an eBook on the topic - called "Work Less to Live Your Dreams" which describes exactly how I'm able to do it.
Beyond that, review your regular expenses. Anything daily or monthly. Is that subscription still good value? Mortgage interest rate and payment schedule optimal?
About once a year or two I'll pile my downloaded bank transactions into a spreadsheet and look at the biggest categories.
I'll also reccomend moneysavingexpert.com to anyone; UK-focused but great general advice. I'm not a big fan of coupons as they're mostly a way of getting me to buy things I wouldn't otherwise, which isn't actually a saving.
There are a bunch of apps that help you spend money more efficiently - but I always feel they're in the lower % of effective saving, and the real answer is 'choose not to buy that thing'. So my question is - are you looking to help people buy thing x more efficiently (and I'm not sure there's a lot of unment need there), or to help people not spend at all (in which case monetisation becomes contrary to the goal of th…
The interruption could range from a simple nag screen, to an enforced cooling-off period before you can proceed with the purchase. Perhaps in the future the user could opt to move the money from their current account into a savings account instead of making the purchase.
Or maybe not even let them purchase at all so you have to use your smartphone to buy anything online. PITA; makes you think twice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certainly it's good to increase your revenue, but saving money is often much more valuable; a dollar saved is $1.4 earned, assuming you live somewhere with a high marginal tax rate.
Also, frugality reaps increased benefits as the income rises. If one can maintain the same cost of living while earning more money, you end up with huge % increases in discretionary cash that can be used for all sorts of great things: investing, philanthropy, starting a business, saving for future personal projects, travel, etc. Example: earn $100k, $35k goes to taxes, spend $50k a year = $15k discretionary. Increase…
It takes time to get used to, but after 6 years on and off, I am using it for the last 8 months regularly, and I already saved enough money for the next 4 months in advance.
This, and in addition, read https://www.amazon.com/Early-Retirement-Extreme-philosophica...
You don't need more, trust me.
But, of course, what these two have in common, is simply:
1. Spend much less than you earn 2. Try to just spend 30-40% of your income, but an emergency fund which stores 6 month worth of money, and then invest the saved money.
What I recommend, is a little game: 1. Don't eat out for a whole month 2. Don't do any big purchases for a whole month
You will see how much many you usually spend, and how your mind is triggering you to buy things. It will be really hard, so instead of thinking about "oh no, I shouldn't buy this", just write a note on a piece of paper everytime you want to buy something.
At the end of the month, you will see how "stupid" you were to want a certain things. If a certain things come up on this list over and over, then maybe it could be useful.