The following should not be considered financial, investment or tax advice. I am not a tax advisor and I do not presume to know your specific situation. In other words, please use common sense!
We've all read the articles about top ten ways to save money : unfortunately, most of the advice is far too impractical to carry out or are relevant to only those that have expensive habits. While saving a $1,000 a year can be put to phenomenal use, what if you're not a habitual smoker or a raging alcoholic? Most of us recognize the monthly expense of daily luxuries, such as internet access and cable television, but at the same time, many said indulgences are also matters of necessity. Saving money for your personal budget is very much like the strategies we recommend for business entities : it is not the amount of the cost savings, but rather, their quality. In other words, we should eliminate the not-so-obvious barriers to our productivity while increasing the profitability of assets that are inherently productive. Money saving strategies then become about employing solutions as opposed to mere sacrificing. In that spirit, here are three practical ways to save money and increase your bottom line!
• Watch those taxes! We all love the feeling of getting a fat refund from the IRS even though you and I are fully aware that that money is not a bonus but money that you gave the government to hold interest free. While the interest payment itself may not accrue as much for the average tax refund, control of your money is a serious concern that all of us need to appreciate more deeply. Should something serious happen to the nation, or even if politicians decide to shut down the government like they did not too long ago, your money could be locked into an account at a time when you might desperately need it. Worse yet, even though the refund is YOUR money, you get taxed on it the following year as income! Should you have a sizable refund in one year, you can rest assured that your Adjusted Gross Income will see a rate hike. Should the IRS make changes to allowable deductions, you may potentially be faced with having less leverage to offset the increased AGI, an increase that was illegitimate (double taxation) to begin with.
Here's the solution! Go through last year's tax forms and make an adjustment in your W4. Take more deductions to effectively bring home more money per paycheck. Rather than spending that "extra" bit, sock it away in a savings account. While you will not get the euphoria of receiving a huge refund, you will at least be assured that you are not giving the government any more control of your money than is necessary. Also, the following year, you will not pay as steep of a penalty on the refund since the amount has been lessened. Just be sure to be conservative on the number of deductions you take : you don't want to be caught in a situation where you owe the government money!
• You're slowing too soon! Every day that I hit the road, I marvel at the amount of drivers that "beat me" to the red light : in fact, I don't think I've ever come across another human soul that hasn't outpaced me. On surface level, this may sound as if I'm a slow driver. I'm not. What I am, however, is a logical driver. I don't see the point of being the first person to stop at a red light. If anything, the added seconds of stationary solitude adds to the boredom inherent in the daily commute. But the more pressing point is the cost : brake pads and rotors are not cheap and they only increase in price the more expensive or more outlandish your choice of vehicle. If money is of no concern, then it's environmentally wasteful to go through materials without stretching their work life to its fullest potential.
Here's the solution! When you know you have to stop, rather than racing up to the point of no return and slamming on the brakes, get in the habit of lifting off the gas pedal prior to the time when brakes become a necessity. This helps the engine and transmission naturally bleed off momentum, and thus exerts less pressure on your braking mechanisms. Also learn to gently glide into the stop : a smooth motion lessens the dramatic weight transfer shift of 3-tons (or more) of steel slamming into your front brakes. These strategies are not just mere conjecture : I haven't changed my front rotors for 10 years and they are absolutely mechanically sound!
• Get the lowest cost gym membership! We all know the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle and number one on the list, outside of a well-balanced diet, is exercise. Just getting off your butt and taking a nice stretching session could do wonders for your physical and mental posture. However, unless you are training for the next Olympics games, many of the glitzy workout machines that dominate the marketing sphere of the gym membership albatross is completely superfluous. Your boss won't notice and won't care that you shaved a tenth of a second off your 100 meter dash unless your name is Usain Bolt.
Here's the solution! Don't go for the gyms that feature the latest gadgetry at the expense of high monthly fees. It's not the machine that will get you the large threshold gains that you desire but rather, the intensity of the workout itself. This means sloooww...buuurrning...repetitions, ones that make you work going up AND down, or left AND right. I can make a psychological argument that machines probably hinder your progress as they feature numerical measurements of workload, thereby increasing the temptation to "bounce" your way through your repetitions without actually working through them.
We've all read the articles about top ten ways to save money : unfortunately, most of the advice is far too impractical to carry out or are relevant to only those that have expensive habits. While saving a $1,000 a year can be put to phenomenal use, what if you're not a habitual smoker or a raging alcoholic? Most of us recognize the monthly expense of daily luxuries, such as internet access and cable television, but at the same time, many said indulgences are also matters of necessity. Saving money for your personal budget is very much like the strategies we recommend for business entities : it is not the amount of the cost savings, but rather, their quality. In other words, we should eliminate the not-so-obvious barriers to our productivity while increasing the profitability of assets that are inherently productive. Money saving strategies then become about employing solutions as opposed to mere sacrificing. In that spirit, here are three practical ways to save money and increase your bottom line!
• Watch those taxes! We all love the feeling of getting a fat refund from the IRS even though you and I are fully aware that that money is not a bonus but money that you gave the government to hold interest free. While the interest payment itself may not accrue as much for the average tax refund, control of your money is a serious concern that all of us need to appreciate more deeply. Should something serious happen to the nation, or even if politicians decide to shut down the government like they did not too long ago, your money could be locked into an account at a time when you might desperately need it. Worse yet, even though the refund is YOUR money, you get taxed on it the following year as income! Should you have a sizable refund in one year, you can rest assured that your Adjusted Gross Income will see a rate hike. Should the IRS make changes to allowable deductions, you may potentially be faced with having less leverage to offset the increased AGI, an increase that was illegitimate (double taxation) to begin with.
Here's the solution! Go through last year's tax forms and make an adjustment in your W4. Take more deductions to effectively bring home more money per paycheck. Rather than spending that "extra" bit, sock it away in a savings account. While you will not get the euphoria of receiving a huge refund, you will at least be assured that you are not giving the government any more control of your money than is necessary. Also, the following year, you will not pay as steep of a penalty on the refund since the amount has been lessened. Just be sure to be conservative on the number of deductions you take : you don't want to be caught in a situation where you owe the government money!
• You're slowing too soon! Every day that I hit the road, I marvel at the amount of drivers that "beat me" to the red light : in fact, I don't think I've ever come across another human soul that hasn't outpaced me. On surface level, this may sound as if I'm a slow driver. I'm not. What I am, however, is a logical driver. I don't see the point of being the first person to stop at a red light. If anything, the added seconds of stationary solitude adds to the boredom inherent in the daily commute. But the more pressing point is the cost : brake pads and rotors are not cheap and they only increase in price the more expensive or more outlandish your choice of vehicle. If money is of no concern, then it's environmentally wasteful to go through materials without stretching their work life to its fullest potential.
Here's the solution! When you know you have to stop, rather than racing up to the point of no return and slamming on the brakes, get in the habit of lifting off the gas pedal prior to the time when brakes become a necessity. This helps the engine and transmission naturally bleed off momentum, and thus exerts less pressure on your braking mechanisms. Also learn to gently glide into the stop : a smooth motion lessens the dramatic weight transfer shift of 3-tons (or more) of steel slamming into your front brakes. These strategies are not just mere conjecture : I haven't changed my front rotors for 10 years and they are absolutely mechanically sound!
• Get the lowest cost gym membership! We all know the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle and number one on the list, outside of a well-balanced diet, is exercise. Just getting off your butt and taking a nice stretching session could do wonders for your physical and mental posture. However, unless you are training for the next Olympics games, many of the glitzy workout machines that dominate the marketing sphere of the gym membership albatross is completely superfluous. Your boss won't notice and won't care that you shaved a tenth of a second off your 100 meter dash unless your name is Usain Bolt.
Here's the solution! Don't go for the gyms that feature the latest gadgetry at the expense of high monthly fees. It's not the machine that will get you the large threshold gains that you desire but rather, the intensity of the workout itself. This means sloooww...buuurrning...repetitions, ones that make you work going up AND down, or left AND right. I can make a psychological argument that machines probably hinder your progress as they feature numerical measurements of workload, thereby increasing the temptation to "bounce" your way through your repetitions without actually working through them.
