By Aida Mounkes

Are you living paycheck to paycheck? Do you always tell yourself – things will get better? Sometimes we have to make the things better. It is one thing to listen to a lot of great ideas but will these great ideas work for you?

Planning for a Great Future

Financial planning is quite frankly depressing sometimes when you are living paycheck to paycheck. How do you plan for a future when it is just as bleak as before? I have known people not to budget at all because they did not want to see how much money they didn’t have. It doesn’t have to be that way. I choose to see Budgeting and Financial Planning as a whole, as EMPOWERING. Knowledge is power. Setting goals and accomplishing them even more so.

So, let’s talk about the kind of debt you want to conquer first. Unsecured debt is any debt that basically is not guaranteed to be paid off with something. For example, if you have a Home Equity Loan, that loan will be paid off by the sale of the house, so it is guaranteed. However, Credit Cards or a personal loan is not. Those interest rates are higher for unsecured debt and it is important to concentrate on unsecured debt first. There are many philosophies of how to pay off credit card. Some will say to pay off the highest interest rates first, while others say to pay off the card with the lowest amount owed. I say to pay off whatever is easier first. If the card with the lowest amount is also the card with the lowest amount due every month, I would concentrate on that card first. You could pay a little more than due and calculate when that card would be paid off. Then once that card is paid off use the same amount on the next card.

Once the credit cards are taken care of, then you can set new goals. The new goals could be the investments needed for planning for a new home, new car, or retirement itself. Financial planning can be empowering. It is all in how you look at it.

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