Stealth Leading to Wealth
June 25, 2008 by Miranda Marquit
Filed under Finance
This is a guest post from Monneypenny over at Digital Money World. She’s helping out while I’m out of town. One less pre-post to worry about :) Head over and give her some love.
This year we are all feeling a little poorer so how can we be stealthily putting money away for the rainy days ahead, when we find it hard to even make ends meet. Well here’s some ways. If you find these tips useful let me know here on www.yieldingwealth.com. If you have a tip to offer please leave a comment.
1. Cut out the unecessessary. read through one of your credit-card statements and check for ongoing monthly fees that you may have forgotten about. Are these essential?
Cancel any club memberships you don’t use and magazine subscriptions you don’t really read. Stop wishing and spending hard-earned money on lottery tickets and scratch cards.
2. Pay yourself first. Are you saving anything? Just 100 dollars a month can make the difference. If it seems like all the money you make gets gobbled up by bills and other expenses, name a reasonable amount you could view as yet another monthly bill. Could you put away 200/100/50/20 dollars each month Start putting that money away for yourself, now.
3. Decide where to put your stealth money. After a few months this money could become automatic contributions to a mutual fund or stock fund. If you need the money to be more available than that, consider an online savings or money market account. (See Online Money Market Account Rates for Investors.) These can pay annual percentage yields between 4 percent and 5 percent or even higher, as opposed to low yields of about 0.2 percent to 0.5 percent for traditional savings accounts.
4. Pay more into your mortgage or shed credit card debt. By paying an extra $100 a month toward the principal debt on a $150,000, 30-year mortgage, you could save about $50,000 in interest and be able finish your mortgage up to seven years early. Even an extra monthly payment of 20 or 25 dollars will make difference to your debt. Pay your credit card in full before the due date to avoid interest and turn it into an interest free loan.. For some they’d rather have tax benefits of a morgage, but being debt free earlier shouldn’t be under-estimated.
Do you have a tip?
Yours in money stealth,
Moneypenny
