Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Too Lazy to Pay Mortagage -- How to Stay on Financial Track No Matter how Busy or Lazy You Are

I recently found out some very "interesting" information about an acquaintance that shocked me. The other day Be-Mine and I were out with his best friend and his best friend's wife. The four of us are very together people especially financially. One of the topics of conversation was about a couple who they are friends with struggling to put their old house on the market. A few conversations later we started talking about how prevalent its become for people to just walk away from their mortgages and allowing their homes to go into foreclosure. I remarked about how I just couldn't ever imagine doing that and "wife" brought up the fact that the wife of the couple we were just talking about just walked away from her house a year ago after she got married because she just never listed it for sale with a real estate agent. It was joked that she was more lazy than our two men combined.

This blew me way, how can someone be so lazy that they allow a house to go into foreclosure, especially this individual who I've always know to have a ton of energy and be very dedicated. I'm not certain this is the full story since I am aware that this couple has had some financial troubles in the past and declared bankruptcy, but none the less, I thought I'd explore this idea of being too lazy or just too busy to take care of financial business. I know we are all busy people and some times get stretched way too thin (I'm feeling that pain right now) so I thought I'd recommend some ways to ensure that your financial matters get taken care of no matter how busy you are or how lazy you are.

1. Automatic Bill Pay for recurring payments (Rent/Mortgage, Car Payment, Insurance etc) --- Use it for all of those bills that you know are the same amount each month and you don't need to check before they are paid.
2. Use online banking --- Use online banking to quickly check your accounts on a regular basis so that you do not have to waste time at the end of each month reconciling accounts to ensure that the checks that cleared were correct.
3. Utilize online bill pay --- Don't waste time organizing bills to be mailed on certain dates, writing checks, and stuffing envelopes. I love online bill pay, I receive a bill in the mail and that very day I open it, review it and then schedule payment. I probably spend all of 5 minutes max performing this task.
4. Make Savings Automatic via banking transfers --- Save time and ensure commitment towards saving by having a pre-determined amount of money transfered from your checking to saving monthly/weekly/regularly
5. Make Retirement Savings automatic via payroll deductions --- Sign up for your 401k/403b etc at work and all the paperwork is complete for you. In addition to this you can sign up for payroll deductions to your Roth IRA or other retirement accounts. It only takes a few minutes to sign up with your HR department and then you never have to think of it again for a full year
6. The Number One Way to Ensure you're on financial track despite busy times is to MAKE GOALS AND REVIEW THEM OFTEN --- Every year I set goals for myself - financially, professionally, and personally. I write these down because goals only move from dreams to goals when written, I then create an action plan for each goal and post both my goals and action items in a nifty colorful pyramid and post these in appropriate places. For example my professional goals are posted on my desk drawer, my personal goals which include my running goals are posted on the refrigerator, and my financial goals are posted next to my computer. Goals help you keep your eye on the prize no matter how busy or lazy your are, plus by creating action steps you not only have a starting point towards achieving your goal but also baby steps that can be accomplished even in busy times.

I hope these tips help you stay focused during busy times. I'd love to hear your tips for keeping on financial track when you're busy or if you're just plain lazy?

Monday, May 19, 2008

Weekend Round Up

Hey all. With my new no guilt for not posting concept. I didn't have enough time (and still get 6 hours of sleep) to finish catching up on my fellow BFBloggers posts from the past week. I plan to do in the coming week and include those highlights with next week's Weekend Round Up.

But in the mean time I thought I'd remind you all to check out their blogs for some good ideas/tips and stories.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Changing Post Schedule

I just got back from am amazing get away. Mr. Be-Mine and I went Hiking and celebrated his Birthday.

It was wonderful to get away from the real world, away from my job problems, away from tvs, computes, phones etc and just chill. I can't remember the last time I was able to truly enjoy a sunrise. Normally sunrises occur when I'm standing in the building trying to get pre-task plans complete with the work crews so we can start our day and normally the sunrise goes completely unnoticed other than to note that the site lighting at the job site can be turned off.

While I was up in the Mountains, I realized that lately I've been stretching myself way too thin lately. The primary reason is because of the demands and expectations of my new project. In the construction industry, I've always anticipated/expected to work 10 hours a day, 12 hours at busier times or when we've behind schedule but since joining this new project I've been regularly working 14+ hours a day on top of running every morning, posting here, volunteering at the food bank (although not as much as I'd like to lately), and trying to do the day to day activities of life all while trying to get sufficent sleep to accomplish all of this activities. To be honest its just not working and some things are slipping through the cracks, so I realized things have to give.

One of them is posting 6 days a week on this blog. Unfortunately I've not even been able to even keep up with this, and each day I go with out a post I feel incredibly guilty so to avoid the guilt I'm just going to make the decision that I'm only going to post 3-4 times a week.

By reducing the number of times I plan to post it will do two things. 1 - It will remove my guilt for when I don't post. 2 - It will allow me more time to complete posts and really put together quality posts that I was able to do when I was working on the project in Valdosta.

I hope you all will still check in regularly to follow Saving Savy by a Future Millionaire as I really appreciate all of your feed back and will need it even more now I as go with this new challenge in life.

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