In this economy, money can be especially hard to come by, so knowing how to save the money you do have is even more important. In these times, living is more of a balancing act than anything else.

In order to save money, often times you have to spend it.

This means that you need to get your debt paid off as soon as you can, while still holding money aside for savings. This means that you will need to put together a budget that will give you a picture of how much money you have and where it needs to go.

• By calculating your expenditures, you will have a better chance of peeling some of it off and putting it into savings.
• It may help you to categorize your expenditures into such things as utilities, car expenses, home expenses and rent.
• Keep the categorization with you and when you spend money log it into one of the categories.

If you find that you are still not saving enough money you may want to trim down even more.

Cancel your land line and just use your cell phone, eat at home more often, maybe rent out a room in your place to help you cover bills. The more flexible you are willing to be, the more you will be able to reorganize your finances in order to start building wealth.

Financial leverage has a lot of meanings because there are a multitude of ways to get financial leverage.

Savings is a form of financial leverage and the amount of leverage depends on the type of savings.

Compound interest is a good thing, it is basically interest earning interest. This is a way of earning money without doing anything at all. Once it has been deposited, you do nothing with it, it works on its own to make you more money. You may have been told that this is a terrible way to use your money and while it doesn’t build money quickly, it does build it safely.

Life insurance is also a type of financial leverage.

With life insurance the financial risk caused by the loss of the life of one of the moneymakers in the family will not destroy the remaining moneymaker. The loss of a loved one is hard enough, the loss of the financial security piled on top can destroy the family.

Real estate is a very strong form of leverage.

It has been used for a long time by the rich in order to become very rich. Using real estate as leverage dates back to the beginning of owning real estate. Real estate is bought, sold and traded, it’s leased and rented, torn down and built up. With knowledge real estate can turn you from getting by to living in financial freedom.

Your first investment should be in yourself. As you move into financial planning, you will have yourself to congratulate for your successes and you also have the responsibility for your failures.

You, yourself, can be either an asset or a liability to your success.

If there is a failure, it’s easy to blame something or someone else, however, when it comes right down to it, the responsibility is yours and the sooner you stand up to it, the sooner you can learn and change.

You probably have very limited finances and in that situation, it is easy to blame your finances themselves for your financial position. Many millionaires stood in the same spot, only they didn’t blame their finances, they took the responsibility and worked things out to their advantage.

If you are planning on starting a business, this approach is even more important.

If you are willing to stand up and take responsibility, you will have an easier time finding investors that will believe in you and be willing to invest their money in your ideas. Invest in yourself, if you don’t nobody else will want to, and why should they?

Education is also a form of investment, it is an investment in yourself and your financial future. The more knowledge you have, the more financial ability you will have.

Don’t be afraid of investing in yourself.

As long as you have done your research and feel that the investment is a good one, then by all means, invest even though you are still in debt. You’ll want to make sure that you do all your research in order to ensure that your investment is the best you can make it.

With good financial planning and good research, you can develop some fine investments.

These investments will not only see you help to provide you with a healthier financial future, they can also help to offset the debt you currently have. With the offset of your current debt by your investments, you will have more money available to invest even more.

As long as you do your research and plan out each financial move, you stand a good chance of doing well with your investments and paying off your debt much faster than you otherwise might have should you have decided to just go along as you were, working at your job and paying your debt and staying in your same routine.

This is where the old saying nothing ventured nothing gained comes in.

It’s okay to be adventuresome with your investing as long as you do it wisely. Nobody has ever succeeded brilliantly that hasn’t also suffered failures. Don’t let failures hold you back, take a deep breath, do your research again and get back on your feet.

Yes, money is coins made out of various metals, its printed paper with pictures and numbers on it that you exchange for goods and services.

But what is money really?

Your definition of money makes a difference as to how you interact with it.

• Does money remind you of the outstanding debt you currently have and does it mean you can make payments on that debt?
• Does money mean you can go to the movies, go to a theme park or buy yourself a new toy?
• Is money something that helps you get through your day to day living.
• Is money evil?
• Your friend?
• Your enemy?

What is money? The answer is that money is power. The one that has money is the one that has power. The saying that money talks is very true. You need money to make money.

So what do you do with your money?

There are those of us that collect money and those of us that spend money. It’s a sure bet that the people who spend money are putting it into the pockets of those that collect money. If you want to be successful in life, you need to change yourself from the spender into the collector.

That means changing your definition of money.

People that are collectors have a healthy respect for money and you will want to develop that respect too. Know what money is and what it can do for you if handled correctly.

Extended warranties are almost always a bad deal for the customers.

Retailers push extended warranties hard because they can often make more money on the warranty than they actually do on the product itself.

They offer them on almost anything now, especially low dollar electronics. People buy them because after all, it doesn’t seem like much money and if anything happens to the item within that year they will be covered.

The thing is, if something is going to happen to an electronic device, it probably won’t happen within the first year.

It will likely happen sometime after that which means that you have paid for the warranty and now you are going to pay for the repair or replacement too. When it comes to the lower dollar items, say no to the extended warranties. Take all that money that you save on extended warranties and put it in a savings account. That way if your fifty dollar electronic device fails, you have the money to fix it or just purchase a new one.

Keep the stores from using you like a cash cow, keep your money in your pocket and walk out without that warranty.

If you buy the item with the right credit card, you will probably get a two to three year extended warranty through them anyway. Remember that stores are out to make money, not provide you with new products should yours fail, they have wiggle room built in so that even if you do have an extended warranty, they may be able to wiggle out of it and you end up paying for it anyway.

The very best idea about borrowing money is don’t do it. Borrowing money means living beyond your means, if you do that too much, you will likely never make it into that ten percentile of people that have all the money.

Those people are likely the ones that are loaning it to you.

Credit cards may seem like they make life easier, however what they do is keep you in debt, that is what they are designed to do. That doesn’t mean you can’t use credit cards, it means that you need to be able to pay off the full balance every month.

This will give you the benefits the card offers without the high interest rates.

Of course there are times when you absolutely will need to borrow money, there’s no getting around that so when you get into that position, shop around for interest rates, don’t just take the first thing you see.

Remember, you are the one that is in control of who you do business with.

They want your business and many banks will be willing to work with you to get it. Especially if you have kept your bills paid on time and your credit cards up to date. If you have built up credit card debt, then you may want to consider a consolidation loan that gives you the money you want and also the money to pay off the credit card debt.

This will be a lower interest loan and you should pay it off as soon as you can.

There are basically three categories of consumers:

1. Those that spend beyond their means, relying on credit to pull them through.
2. Those that live just within their means but without savings.
3. Those that live below their means, using the rest of the money for investing and savings.

Studies show that ninety percent of the nation’s wealth is held by ten percent of the people.

They also show that if the wealth was redistributed equally, it would make its way back to the ten percent in a short period of time.

This has to do completely with people’s spending habits. You know what category you are currently in, but is that category one that guarantees you financial wellbeing? If not, you will need to work to change your spending habits and build a strategy for future budgeting and investing.

Figure out what your long term goals are and have the discipline to figure out your budget and stick with it. This will mean adjusting your lifestyle to accommodate your new budget. Your goal is to out figure your finances so you are spending below your means and investing or saving the rest.

This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy life.

If you design your budget to offer you a meager amount of entertainment and enjoyment, you will become resentful of the budget and break it and probably go back to your old spending habits.

A car purchase is a major purchase and needs to be considered carefully before signing papers.

Once you know what car you want, your work begins:

1. Before going into a dealership, get online and get an idea of what the car is really worth.
2. Make sure you know the options you want and what you don’t want.
3. Remember that most cars depreciate by between twenty and thirty percent as soon as they leave the lot.
4. Purchasing a one year old car gives you almost the same car for a significant reduction in price.
5. If you have to have a new car then you’ll want to get the dealership to drop as much as you can on the price.

Dealerships are wonderful at finding out just how much you have to spend and working their price around the most money you have to put towards the vehicle. They have their sales tactics down and they know how to read people. If ever a poker face was a good idea this is the time.

Be ready to walk out if they won’t meet your requirements.

Don’t give them your license in order to put in an offer, they don’t need it. You need to stay in control of the situation. The more control you let them have, the higher your price will be.

Even if you are absolutely in love with the vehicle, you can’t show it.

You need to look at the vehicle pragmatically. The more interest you show, the more the sales person will be able to manipulate you.

When you pay your mortgage, do you:

• Mail it in?
• Pay for it online?

Do you get a receipt from the mortgage holder for the date and time that you paid it?

It may surprise you to know, but, if you mail your payment in, or you pay it online, your mortgage holder may not actually credit it to your account until the very last day, the day it is absolutely due.

Why would they do that?It’s simple, the more days the loan goes at the higher amount, the more interest can be added on.

If they hold your payment till the last day, they can add more interest onto your loan than they could if they credited the payment as soon as it came in.

You have no way of proving that the payment reached them days before they credited it so they get away with it. You want to save interest on your loan?

Take your payment in, hand it to them and get a receipt showing they credited that payment to your account.

In doing that, you will remove any chance of the bank holding your payment and thereby allowing themselves to charge you more money. It may not seem like much, but it does add up and you keep them from being able to practice unscrupulous billing.