5 Massive Money Mistakes I’ve Made

Managing your money takes time, effort, initiative, and more than a little knowledge, but the most important aspect to successfully manage your personal finances is ATTITUDE. What is the proper attitude to have? I think it’s one that fiercely guards your resources and doesn’t allow anything to drain them away. But, that attitude must be balanced with a spirit of giving and the willingness to enjoy simple things such as eating a $3 candy bar.

For too much of my life, I had one of the worst attitudes toward money and today I’m regretting it. It’s the attitude of procrastination.

Here are MY top 5 massive money mistakes:

1. Believing that “future Ron” will be wealthy enough to take care of everything from children’s weddings and college educations to paying off credit cards with high interest rates. Today I’m playing catch up. I’m working to increase my Roth IRA contributions so that I’ll have a little more for retirement, I’m very concerned with the kids education even though I have pretty hefty 529 plans on all three. I’m also concerned because my oldest will be wanting a vehicle soon. My daughters will be possibly getting married in about 10 years (hopefully a little longer ).

I always thought that I would be in a different financial situation than I’m in now. Don’t get me wrong. I make a very good living and I’m in much better than average financial shape, but where would I be today if I had simply planned for the future? Procrastination IS planning, it’s just planning to fail….later.

My advice: Start planning your future today, with the next decision you face. Plan your future. Map out where you are right now and where you want to be. Then put your plan into action.

2. Saving with my right hand and spending with my left. For far too long I prided myself on having a savings account. Most people I knew didn’t have one but I did. The problem was that every deposit I made was followed by a withdrawal. I had my wheels in the sand and wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t have any control over my spending and it showed by my acclaimed savings account getting riddled with excessive withdrawal fees. Savings accounts are not what the bank considers “transaction accounts” and they tack on a fee for having too many withdrawals. It quickly eats into whatever pittance of interest they pay and starts devouring your principle.

Out of control spending is a symptom of a much deeper problem. My problem was a lack of contentment with my situation at the time. I alleviated that lack of contentment by buying stuff, mostly with high rate credit cards. Since stuff never makes you happy, I was going into deeper and deeper debt for nothing.

My advice: Learn the lost art of contentment. Don’t just buy something because you want it. Today, our slogan isn’t I came, I saw, I conquered. Our national saying is I saw it, I wanted it, I bought it with Citibank. Learn to be satisfied with your current situation. Do you really need another iPod? Do you really need a new espresso machine? Do you really need a digital SLR camera? Really, really REALLY “need” it? Will your life be incomplete without it? Really?

3. Shunning frugality. I never considered the word until a few years ago. Frugal was one of those attitudes that I associated with cheap. It meant that someone bought the cheap Chek Cola to the church social. It meant eating oatmeal every day with no butter, milk, or sugar in it and nothing but beans for supper. It meant that someone wouldn’t get the AC in their car fixed and drove around in the 105 degree heat with the windows rolled down, calling their AC system a 465–4 windows at 65 miles per hour. Those aren’t “frugal,” they’re just plain cheap. All of these describe me at some point in my life.

In reality frugality is maximizing every dollar. It is avoiding wasteful expenditures and seeking ways to reduce costs. If I can reduce my living costs just $200 per month, over the course of 25 years (the amount of time until I retire) I can earn about $190,000 at 8 percent rates. If I could make it $250 and realize a gain of 9 percent, it would zoom up to $280,000. Those dollars are in addition to anything else I’ve saved. Remember that a penny saved is MORE than a penny earned.

People fret about earning an additional half point on a bank CD but ignore their ability to put real money into their pocket by practicing a little frugality.

4. Paying high interest debt. I’ve already told you the story about How I Experienced the Double Edge Sword of Credit, so I won’t rehash it here. Suffice it to say that I made some very dumb, selfish financial moves when I was much younger and I’m still feeling the repercussions today. I’m still paying off student loans at age 42. Fourty two. Did you read that number? Are you a college student or recent grad? Do you think you’ll still be paying on those loans in 20 years? You better double up on your payments and get them knocked out ASAP. Otherwise, you’ll be in the same boat I’m in.

Paying high interest debt is a drain on your soul. It is so disheartening to see that you made a $275 payment last month and only $31.58 went to principle, the rest ($243.42) went to interest and to line the pockets of some credit card company.

My advice: Avoid paying interest like it was the plague. Since most people don’t know what the plague was, avoid it like the flu!

5. Spending every penny as soon as I received it. When I first got married, $5 cold buy you a very nice lunch. So what did I do? My co-workers and I would go out to eat every day. $5 here and $5 there. My wife was doing about the same thing. At the end of our first month of marriage, I prepared to “pay the bills.” I can still remember walking out of that room and her asking, “How much do we have left?” My reply was, “about $50.” I’ll never forget the shock on her face as she asked where it all went. I showed her how much we were spending on meals out and we made the decision to severely restrict our dining out.

As the years went by, I would get raises and bonuses. Guess what happened to them. They were spent on vacations, more stuff, bills that should have been paid for by an emergency fund, and eating out. I spent virtually every dollar I made, without thinking about the future at all. I never allowed the power of compound interest to make my money work for me, nooo, I was too busy eating it, spending it, wearing it, giving it as a gift, driving it, living in it, decorating the house with it, and wasting it on frivolous stuff.

My advice: Invest at least half of every bonus you get, if possible. I do know that some companies pay virtually all their wages in a bonus structure so you would need to take this into consideration when budgeting a savings amount.

As you can see from these, most of my personal problems with finances stems from attitude. All of these mistakes could have been prevented with just a simple attitude shift. Don’t let them happen to you!

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Check out My 5 Biggest Money Mistakes at Bible Money Matters.

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3 Tips on Eating Out for Five but Paying for Only One

Eating out at restaurants has become much more the norm than it was in years past. But eating out in restaurants doesn’t have to break your bank. If you know how to pull it off, you can drastically reduce the amount of money you spend on a trip with your family to a restaurant. Here’s a few tips:

1. Take advantage of “kids eat free” promotions. I have a friend who does this regularly. He goes to a restaurant where he gets two free kids meals when one adult meal is purchased. Everyone drinks water (sodas are included in the kids meals). He orders one grilled chicken platter and gets a loaded baked potato, one order of vegetables and a side salad. He orders two kids meals, one with chicken fingers and a loaded baked potato, another with a cheeseburger and fries. His wife eats half of his grilled chicken, half of the potato, and the salad. His daughter eats the other loaded potato, his two sons eat most of the chicken fingers and fries and some of the cheese burger. Dad eats the rest. Total with tip? $12 to 13 bucks and everybody’s full.

You don’t have to be this cheap but if you learn how the deals work, “kids eat free” promotions can be a very frugal way to enjoy a night out. Check out the site My Kids Eat Free.

2. Check with local schools and other civic organizations for their big ole book of coupons, usually called an entertainment book. They usually cost about $10 but have hundreds of dollars in coupons and savings in them. Restaurants are great about advertising in these books and usually have better deals than you can find elsewhere. Check out these entertainment books at The 2008 Entertainment Book - Great Savings on Dining, Shopping, Travel, Attractions, Movie Tickets & More! Many of the savings are buy one get one free or some variation of it.

3. Your third alternative is to learn to cook restaurant style meals at home. Believe me, it CAN be done. If you can read, follow directions, and eat, you have the makings of a restaurant quality chef! You can do it! Give it a try this weekend by selecting a link below and trying out a recipe you love from your favorite restaurant.

Check out these sites to get the recipes for your favorite restaurants:
Copykat recipes
Top Secret Recipes
Recipe Link

Keep in mind too, that many chefs will give you a recipe or at least tell you what ingredients are in a dish, then you can have a fun day figuring out the proportions. Go on, give it a try.

On a personal note:
I can remember being a little kid in 1976 and hearing that my parents had been out to eat to a Chinese restaurant. THAT was fascinating to a young 10 year old who rarely, if ever, got to go out to eat. When we did go out, it was the usual American fare, mashed potatoes, chopped steak, green beans, rolls, etc. But not only did Mom and Dad go out…they brought home doggie bags! My little brother and I were thrilled beyond belief and the taste of that food was something out of a fiction novel to our little taste buds. The shrimp with lobster sauce was succulent and creamy, the almond chicken had the distinctive taste of soy sauce and the crunch of almonds, the Mongolian beef was big and bold in its spicy and sweet flavors.

A few months later my parents decided to take my brother and me out to the same restaurant. We were stunned that we got to go out to enjoy such delicacies. My mother spent a few days reminding and re-training us how to eat with proper manners and when we did leave, we wore our little polyester suits with the clip on ties and the uncomfortable shoes that gave me a blister on my heel.

The restaurant lived up to its doggie bag reputation and we enjoyed the egg rolls, the won ton soup, the beef with broccoli, the kung pao pork, and other Chinese fare. We tried to eat with the chopsticks, failing miserably, but were easily able to master the oversize porcelain spoons. It was a special night that I’ll always remember.

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