For the amount of time you spend towards making your hard earned money, it is much easier just to throw it all away! The hardest thing to do is avoid situations that will put you into debt, especially when the offers and other incentives seem so great at the time.
Not Reading the Fine Print – No matter how mundane some contracts may seem (cell phones, gym memberships, etc.) reading the fine print may save you a great deal of money. These fine print sections of contracts usually contain some really important information about canceling your membership and all the if/ands/or buts that can come with opening any contract. Make sure to read it especially with credit cards because you don’t want to be paying any extra fees that you weren’t aware of.
Ignoring Your Bills – Ignoring your bills is so easy to do, especially if you put your bills away as soon as they come in the mail because you don’t want to look at them. Make sure you take your bills out when you get them and review them to make sure you are staying on top of your payments. People often times hide their bills because they don’t want to think about it and later come to realize they have missed several payments. Although hiding your bills may seem like a simple solution at the time, it will cause you more harm in the long run than you want to deal with.
Opening Store Credit Cards - These cards will always get you! The deals/points towards purchases always sound so great with the sales person behind the counter is talking to you…but when your bill comes it usually isn’t so great. Remember that credit cards from stores such as Macy’s, Nordstrom’s, and Victoria’s Secret tend to have a higher interest rate than normal credit cards. Also, I always found that I was forgetting to pay my bills for these credit cards because they didn’t seem as important as my other bills. Believe me, they are just as important and will affect your credit score.
Spending Because You Feel You Need To – This can happen in several ways. Sometimes you think you need to go out with your friends because you don’t want to be left out. However, if your friends are really good friends, they won’t care if you come out and will understand that you just don’t have the money to spend right now. Try doing something else that doesn’t cost a lot of money. Other times people shop to forget how much they already owe on their credit cards. Shopping is an outlet for many people and usually does not help the situation but just continues to make it worse. Don’t kid yourself! Make sure you are fully aware of your situation because if it gets worse, you may have nobody to blame but yourself.
Thinking You Have More Money Than You Do – If you let all your money sit in your checking account, then when you go to the ATM you may think you have more money than you actually do because you have already forgotten the purchases that you put on your credit card. I avoid this by paying off my credit card bills as I go. This way even if I forget what I have bought on my credit card, I have already paid it off and the money isn’t sitting in my checking account for me to spend.
Make sure you are taking all the right steps to keeping yourself out of debt. Just remember that you work hard for your money and it is much easier to throw it away than it is to make it.
Photo: Jane M Sawyer
November 9th, 2008 at 7:32 am
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