Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Cultivate your inner milli(onaire)

Is it possible that everyone has the opportunity to cultivate the habits necessary to become wealthy? 

Maybe. 

If you have the desire and the drive (I believe) you can become more financially secure than you may be now.  Here are four simple steps (when I say simple I mean straight forward not that they are easy to implement or introduce):

Start at the beginning:  Where do you want to be financially?  Start with easy goals, such as a savings account for a rainy day (i.e. three to six months of basic expenses saved up for an emergency).  You can also look at your current debts and prioritize the pay off by taking care of the most expensive credit lines (the ones with the highest interest rate), going down the list to the least expensive credit (such as mortgage or student debt, which are in most cases tax favorable).

Next: Review your income (all money you have coming in from work, hobbies, refunds, etc) and your monthly expenses (focus on the necessities and discretionary spending).  Take a look at our sister blog on NeizvestAcademy that pertains to the budget strategies.

Lastly: Use a retirement calculator, usually available online through your bank's website to estimate how much you'll need to save annually to reach your financial goal.

Now for the simple but not necessarily easy part: identify sources of savings or additional income to help yourself reach the financial security goals identified in the first three steps of this process.