Making and Using a Budget After Fifty
July 26, 2010 by 50 Plus
Filed under Money, Recent Posts, iphoneapp
If you’re like many 50 plus women and men, making the most of your money can be pretty scary in this economy. One solution is to start using a budget to keep track of your personal finances. Even when the economy is good and you’re living comfortably, creating and using a budget keeps your finances on track. Many people cringe when they hear the word “budget”, because they think it means you can’t have any fun or spend any money. That’s far from the truth. Even a tight budget leaves room for fun and a little extra spending from time to time.
When you plan a budget, you start being realistic about what you’re spending and saving. Don’t say you spend $10 per week on lunches if you know you really spend $40. You can change the amounts later and cut back if necessary, but the first step is to get everything down on paper just as it is right now. That way, you can actually see what you’re really spending in black and white.
You Might Be Really Surprised
Usually, people who create an honest budget by tracking their spending each month and writing everything down find that they’re shocked at how much they’re paying out. It’s not just the bills, but also the little things like lunches and dinners out, coffee in the morning, and small purchases that add up.
For one month, keep track of every cent you spend. Avoid hiding anything or sweeping it under the rug. Save all of your receipts and write them down. That means bills, spending money you withdrew from the bank, and anything else that was paid out in that time frame. At the end of the month, you’ll have an accurate picture of what it’s costing you to live for 30 days.
How to Lower Your Costs
After you get over the initial shock of your tracking experiment, you’ll likely want to find ways to spend less. There are many ways to lower expenses, and they can depend somewhat on how you spend your income. Everyone is different, and not every idea will apply to each person.
- Consider these ideas in order to decrease how much you spend each month:
- Adjust the thermostat by a few degrees to save on electricity or gas.
- Skip going out for lunch and coffee by bringing these things from home.
- Change to a less expensive cable TV, Internet, or cell phone plan.
- Have a yard sale to get rid of unwanted items and make some quick cash.
- Carpool or use public transit, and sell that second car.
- Buy groceries only during sales and stock up on often-used items.
Of course, there are plenty of other ways to save. What works for one family might not work for another. However, in all likelihood, you really don’t need the latest gadgets, newest car, or brand-name clothing. You may want them, but that’s not the same thing.
How much are unnecessary things really costing you? And is it worth it? When you really think deeply about your answers, you’ll likely find that living a more frugal life can actually give you a better quality of life and freedom to do more of the things you want in this second half of life.
At first, budgeting may seem depressing and restrictive. But as you get a clear snapshot of what you’re spending, you can better decide how to spend less – or if you even want to spend less. Whatever you decide, it helps to have an easy-to-follow road-map to personal finance in your life after 50.
RT Budgeting After 50The Wealthy Mindset – How Your Thoughts Affect Your Financial Future
May 24, 2010 by
Filed under Money
Surely you’ve heard the saying that when you believe in yourself, you can do anything. It’s a piece of advice that gets passed around for a reason – because it’s 100% true! It especially applies to having a wealthy mindset. It doesn’t matter where you’re starting from; with the right steps, the sky really is the limit.
Believing In Yourself
The first step is to truly believe that you can accomplish anything when you set your mind to it. You can prove to yourself that you believe you can become wealthy by taking it seriously and making concrete plans.
Financially, where are you right now and where do you want to be? It doesn’t matter how far you need to travel, you just need to set out plans right now.
The next thing you need to work on is the “how” of it all. What actions will you take in order to achieve the wealth you desire?
When you write these plans down, you’ll be holding something concrete that you can believe. It’s a promise you’re making yourself for the future. You can refer to your plans often as you begin to use your wealthy mindset to take swift action.
Starting From Scratch
Having the correct mindset can be difficult if you feel that you’re starting from nothing. However, this is when a positive attitude is needed the most! Just think about all the other people that would have given up, and tell yourself that you’re not going to be one of them.
It may help you to look up inspiring stories. There are plenty of people in the world that started with next to nothing who built extremely profitable companies and other streams of income. The difference between them and the average person wasn’t a superhuman power; it was a simple will to achieve great things. They embraced a wealthy mindset and they didn’t take no for an answer.
Expanding Your Wealth
If you’re looking to expand your wealth, a proper mindset can also help you do so. Refer back to your plans to see how far away you are from your ultimate goals.
When it comes to wealth expansion, you may feel like, since you have some money, you can take some risks. However, it’s important to be careful and make sure you have back up plans and back up revenue just in case one of your risks don’t pan out.
Wealthy Affirmations
Nothing gets you in the right mindset like a good affirmation. You can obtain a book on affirmations that pertain to wealth or you can write your own. Writing your own affirmations is a good idea because you can incorporate your personal life goals into them.
Tell yourself: “I am achieving my goals for wealth” or “I am making money,” and you’ll continue to do so.
Keep an Eye on the Future
In order to protect your financial future, you always have to be forward thinking. Developing a positive mindset now will help to ensure that you have a prosperous future. These strategies can help you develop and maintain a wealthy mindset and literally transform your life.
The Wealthy Mindset – How Your Thoughts Affect Your Financial FutureHow to Develop a Prosperity Mindset
May 23, 2010 by
Filed under Money
Having a prosperity mindset is a key factor in reaching your financial goals. It keeps you on track toward your goals regardless of any challenges you encounter along the way.
These strategies below will help you foster a prosperity mindset that can enable you to live the life you desire.
Keep Your Focus
If you find that your mind wanders from idea to idea, create one set plan and stick to it. In your plan, create a list of specific achievable action steps that lead to your goal, and then work on at least one task each day to help maintain your focus.
Plan for Success
It doesn’t matter how focused you are if you don’t have a proper plan. Your financial goals aren’t going to happen just by deciding on a number. Make some clear plans on how you’re going to get there. This will get you past the dream phase so you can start making your ultimate goals a reality.
Be as detailed in your plan as possible and set each task as a mini-goal in itself. Achieving these small goals on a daily basis keeps you motivated and moving along toward your big goal.
Model Yourself After Successful People
One of the best decisions you can make is to use other successful people as your role models. Think about what you admire about these people and then try to model their behavior.
See if you can set up an interview with someone you feel is successful. You may wish to find someone in a similar career so you can study his or her success story.
You’ll also want to study the reasons why they’ve become successful. How do you think they got to where they are? Can you embark on these steps too? Chances are that you can; all you need to do is build up the courage.
Believe In Yourself
Unfortunately too many people don’t have confidence in their abilities and they fail to try or give up far too quickly. You don’t have to be one of these people!
Look back at the people you admire and you’ll likely notice that they felt like giving up at some point. But they didn’t! They likely have an unwavering belief in their abilities and a drive to succeed, no matter what.
You, too, can reach your financial goals! Believe that it is possible! People have proven that it’s possible, and you can achieve anything that’s possible.
Pay It Forward
Along your journey to success, you can practice good karma by paying it forward. Spread your knowledge so that others can learn the lessons you’ve learned. You can serve as a mentor to others just like you were mentored when you were starting out.
When you’re kind to others, that kindness will find its way right back to you. You never know what good can come out of some simple kindness.
It may take some time and effort to develop your prosperity mindset, but the rewards are well worth it. Once youâve mastered it, it will be with you for the rest of your life, guiding you to achieve any financial goals you desire.
How to Develop a Prosperity MindsetHow to Create a Wealth Mindset
March 29, 2010 by
Filed under Money
Wealth creation all starts with the mind. If you have an abundance attitude and wealth mindset, you’ll be able to attract the financial success you deserve!
While there are many paths to wealth, once you discover the abundance mindset, you’ve set yourself up for actually achieving your dreams. But how do you create this mindset in the first place?
Here are some techniques that will help you develop a wealth mindset:
1. Visualize your goal. It’s not enough to just say you want to “be rich.” You have to make the conscious decision to create a clear goal and visualize all the details. It’s best to focus all of your energy on one thing rather than spreading yourself too thin.
2. Be specific. Break down your goal into minute details and start thinking about the exact steps you need to take in order to get there.
3. Break up the plan. The goal seems huge at first, but once broken down into smaller, more manageable steps, it doesn’t seem so bad. Focus on each individual task that you need to complete, and then congratulate yourself once you achieve each step.
4. Take action. It’s easy to get caught up in the daydreaming and planning phases of your goals, but action is what it takes to get you there. Your dreams become realities with action; otherwise they’ll just remain dreams forever.
5. Seek a mentor. Sometimes people are tempted to go at it alone, but you’re not alone in this world! There are many out there that would like to see you succeed and it’s your responsibility to find these like-minded people. Perhaps a business mentor or life coach may be just what you need to give you that extra push.
6. Focus on your thoughts. If you’re experiencing confidence issues, it’s important to take time to focus on your thoughts. Do you really believe that you can achieve wealth? Are negative thoughts holding you back? If necessary, remind yourself that wealth is possible and that success is a very real possibility for you as well.
7. Believe you deserve it. Believe that you are worthy of achieving wealth. If you don’t think that you deserve it, you may unconsciously set yourself up for failure. In turn, you may actually become the roadblock that prevents you from the wealth you deserve.
Believe In Yourself
Do you truly want wealth? Then be willing to follow through on your action plan while maintaining a positive attitude.
In life there are plenty of snags in the road and your path to wealth won’t always be easy. If you maintain the perseverance to achieve, you’ll be more willing to seek solutions and find success.
Remember that you have to start somewhere. Take the time to truly appreciate your progress. So for example, if you’ve doubled your salary, that’s a huge feat to be celebrated! While you may not be rich yet, you’ve made progress on the way to wealth. Keep focused on your goal and you’ll continue to build an unstoppable momentum.
How to Create a Wealth MindsetHow to Attract Money Into Your Life
March 28, 2010 by
Filed under Money
Recently there has been an explosion of discussion regarding the Law of Attraction. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s actually quite simple. Positive attracts positive and negative attracts negative. In other words, you’ll receive good things or bad according to what you focus on.
If you focus on the positive in your life, then more positive things will come your way. If you spend your time and energy focusing on the negative, then you’ll attract more negative things.
You can use these principles to harness the power of the Law of Attraction to attract more money into your life.
Follow these strategies to attract money:
1. Express gratitude. If you want more of something, like money, you must first express gratitude for what you have presently. Gratitude is a powerful positive emotion. Be thankful for all that your Creator has provided you this far.
* You must be sincere in your thanks. If you don’t honestly feel the gratitude, then you won’t be able to attract more of what you want.â¨
* Stay focused on what you do have. Remember, if what you feel and focus on is actually your lack of money, it will only attract more lack back to you.
2. Picture yourself with the money. Visualize it in depth, as if you already have it. You want to see yourself holding the money, touching it, and feeling how happy you are with it in your life.
* Imagine sitting down paying all your bills and buying expensive gifts for those that you love. This will send a positive message out that is to be returned to you.
* Be consistent with sending out these strong positive thoughts and feelings. Mixing it up with negative ones about money sends a conflicting message.
3. Rid yourself of negative thoughts. It’s imperative that you eliminate as many negative feelings as possible. Make a conscious effort to find the positive in everything because your negativity won’t be rewarded with positive results.
* Are there others out there who are positive? You bet! Do your best to find and emulate these people.
* When life hands you a bunch of lemons, it’s time to make lemonade. Find the silver lining or take action to make something positive out of the situation.
4. Have Faith. There are countless documented cases of people who received their heart’s desire by using the principles found in the Law of Attraction. Those people are no different from you!
* Faith is a positive feeling. If you truly want to attract more money into your life, then faith is a must. You have to believe deep down that something like this can and will happen to you.
* It’s time to truly believe that you’re deserving of anything you desire.
The Law of Attraction has helped many people live their dreams. By following its simple principles, it can happen to you as well. Profess an open mind, a willing heart, and a joyful spirit and, in return, you will be rewarded with whatever you request!
How to Attract Money Into Your Life
























