Five Solutions For Your Finances

Simple, immediate steps to improve your finances all year long

Many people welcome in the new year with a burst of new found energy to do things differently.  A lot of this gets focused on personal finances.

Follow these five simple solutions that are proven and effective ways to do things differently with your personal finances.  These solutions will help you keep more of your income or the money you make and do more with what you keep.

1) Resolve to become a comparison spender.  60-65 percent of all consumers pay too much for things.  Comparison spending will put a quick stop to that financially detrimental practice; hence the savings on your spending.

2) Resolve to become a regular saver.  A regular saver is one who saves a portion of all income received.  Start by taking a dollar bill and all of your pocket change and set it aside.  Do this every day and it will average $50 a month. Save a little more by taking all the folding money with your initials on the serial number, and save those $1, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 bills.

3) Resolve to extend the value of your income.  Part of becoming a regular saver is looking for ways to save money in every part of your life. The best and most immediate way to extend the value of household and grocery spending dollar is to employ the use of coupons, rebates and special sales.

4) Resolve to increase your net worth.  Increasing net worth is done by accumulating money and other assets (as opposed to piling up the debts), also, by having assets grow and appreciate in value and paying down indebtedness.  So for 2005, keep building your net worth up and stay off the deconstruction crew.

5) Resolve to get your free credit files.  In 2004 Congress made it able for us to get free credit reports annually from the three major credit reporting agencies.  All US residents are eligible.  Click on www.annualcreditreport.com, call 877-322-8228, or complete the Annual Credit Report Request Form and mail it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281,  Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. The form may be printed from www.ftc.gov/credit.