In addition to Getting Mad About Getting Paid there are people who have No Budget and No Clue. Recently someone complained about all the high fees her family was paying in overdrafts every month. She thinks that she was paying about 3 overdraft fees every month because of not knowing who was withdrawing money or having late deposits.
I offered to help the individual and even set up a spending log so she could track her spending to get an idea of where the money was going. The person said she would fill in the sheets on the weekend and I reminded her every few days. On the Monday following our conversation I asked how it went and she admitted that she had not done any of it.
She promised to do it the upcoming weekend and even mentioned that she had a stack of receipts all ready to be entered into the spreadsheet. I again encouraged her and said I was looking forward to the results of the exercise. Three weeks later none of the receipts have been entered and some have even been thrown away so there is no record of where the money went.
Every week I have offered to help to enter the figures but I am assured that it will be done. Well I have given up after three weeks because it seems this person is not serious about getting this done. The first step in cleaning up your finances is making the change in yourself and wanting to do it for the right reasons. If this person does not care enough to start to write down some numbers then I cannot force the issue.
Totally agree.. you can only help soemone so far. They have to be serious about bugeting but at least you are there to offer the advice 🙂
I agree. Budgeting is such an important thing to do if not the most when it comes to handling your money. Only when a person realizes the gaps in their finances will they be able to improve and eventually invest their money.
Also, here’s an article filled with hilarious pictures to show us how hard the times truly are…http://www.gobankingrates.com/photographic-evidence-times-are-still-hard/
What’s the saying Too much month not enough money.
A person who is really serious about tracking where their money goes will never need any help. It is really not that complicated!
I feel sorry for people who are so hopeless with their finances that they regularly get overdraft fees. It’s not rocket science to keep track of how much money you have. If you are over-withdrawing, you are simply throwing away money.
I think that creating a budged is a nice start for some bigger plan. You could start from small things like how much do you spend weekly on food. Every step forward brings us closer to our success.
I wanted to comment from a slightly different but related angle by adding a key strategy for reducing another major drain on American households: cell bills. We shouldn’t just monitor our wireless costs; we need to actively work to reduce them. For starters, check out the Houston-based company Validas, where I work in consumer advocacy. At Validas, we electronically audit and subsequently reduce the average cell bill by about 22 percent—equating to around $450 annually—through our website,fixmycellbill.com . From regular people to top corporations to huge entities like the State of California, an incredibly varied group of wireless customers uses Validas to slash their wireless bills. In other words, Validas works, and it can probably work for you too.
Check out Validas in the media, recently on Fox News at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1uTCO16_ao .
Good luck to everyone reading at retaking control over your wireless expenses.
Dylan
Consumer Advocacy, FixMyCellBill.com