Michelle Singletary
Michelle Singletary
want debt enough
If you'll have enough saved and nobody has to take on debt and you want to retire, shoot go for it.
roof-over-your-head financial ifs
You are NOT a financial failure if you rent. You are getting something for your money. A roof over your head.
sick worry growth
Save what you can toward the emergency and life happens fund. But don't worry yourself sick at the slow growth. The point is it's growing even it's just one dollar at at time.
keys balance cards
The key to making sure your credit stays good is paying the bill on time. If you are paying the balance off even if there is something on the card in recent purchases, you are good.
progress debt motivated
I've found that when you can quickly knock out debt you get motivated because you see progress. Then you attack the other debt so fast that even if it's at a higher interest rate, you don't end up paying much more because you've gotten rid of it.
college
Once you finish paying for college you could reduce your life insurance.
guts steers
I usually find that my gut doesn't steer me wrong when it comes to my money!
mistake people financial
The sad thing is many people learn how to manage money after they've made a lot of financial mistakes, some that take decades to fix.
kids blessing people
Kids can and are a blessing. But plenty of people without kids live and die just as happy.
names car firsts
I'm driving my old car until I'm on a first name basis with the low tow truck drivers!
simple track fancy
You don't need to waste money on a fancy program or app to do a basic budget. I've been using a simple Excel spreadsheet since 2005 to track my monthly budget.
couple years track
To get started, track your expenses for a couple of months. Then you should be able to start filling in your estimated debits and deposits for the next few months. Once you get it rolling for a while, you will be able to see your budget for the upcoming months reflected in the estimated totals. You can even notice year-to-year trends, like bonuses, tax bills, etc. that come up routinely and it will help you budget accordingly.
homework protect
We have to protect ourselves by doing our own homework.
hate school grandmother
The schools can't cover all the values that go along with how you handle your money. For example, a financial literacy class might not teach me to hate debt the way my grandmother, Big Mama did.