A Leader Has Control Over His Finance - A Sign of Discipline

  Written by on Sep 1, 2008 10:15 am

Read More: Discipline  |  Personal Development

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You are if you are in debt. Debt weighs you down. It's difficult to grow your business and maintain your energy while drowing in Debt. Here are a few tips I've used over the years.

1. It's not how much you make, it's how much you keep. Get yourself a good accountant to help you plan your business. He or she will help create for you a sound busines plan to minimize your taxes. It will pay for itself. Consider taking a course like I did that showed me how to achieve over 1000 home business tax savings: Sanford Botkin's Cybertax course.

2. Pay yourself First: When you get paid, pay yourself a minimum of 10% of your take home. Unless, it's a rent/mortgage, food, utility or car payment, they can wait.

3. Get Rid of your cary payment. Talk with your accountant to see if it's wise to downsize in car. If you can pay for it within a year, consider staying in that car. Try to buy cars that are at least 1-2 years old and pay cash. Remember, a car is a depreciating asset. So, unless you are financially healthy, do not splurge. Trust me, because I have no car payments, I can find alot of good things to do with that money.

3. Pay cash for purchases. paying cash not only prevents you from getting into debt, you can usually negotiate a better price. Don't get caught in the 90 day same as cash deals because, you won't win. Many times the price in these deals are inflated. Trust me companies do these deals based on science (statistics); so it's like a casino. The house usually wins. Plan your vacations and pre-purchase. I just returned from Europe and it was nice to know that I had no debt hanging over my head.

4. Cut up your Credit Cards: I have not had a credit card for about 6 years. I cut them up then. I use a debit card and there is no problem. Use it as credit card when you go to purchase items and you have the same protection. Don't use the debit option when you purchase anything, including gas.

5. Take advantage of Free Money: If you work for a company that offers a 401k plan, join the plan. Its free matching money. What else can I say? My company offers such a match and I am amazed that no employee takes advantage of it despite reminders.

6. Give to Others: Try it and see if you don't get something back in return. It's like the monkey with the fist in the jar of peanuts. If the monkey had just let go of a few peanuts, its fist would be smaller and it could get out of the jar with the remaining peanuts.

7. Don't buy a home or rent where the payments are more than 25% of your take home (net) income. Nothing else needs to be said. The only person we need to impress is ourself.

More to come,

Orville Campbell, MD - The Adaptogen Doctor

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