Women pay attention to your money!

A Practical Guide to Financial Success Series: Book 3

De: Janice Szur

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Over my career, from waitressing to being a mortgage lender and owning a computer training company, I have continuously tracked household finances. As a lender, there were many times when one of the partners (unfortunately usually the female) had no clue what their finances were. They took for granted that their partner was managing everything and everything was controlled. Sometimes it was, and sometimes it was not. I have worked with many women who found out the hard way how bad their finances were. DO NOT BE THIS PERSON. You can learn the terminology, take control, and NOT USE the excuse of not being good with numbers. YES, YOU ARE.

A sampling of the topics you will learn:

• How to watch your credit score.
• What do you include in your budget?
• What is your net worth?
• What is the difference between stocks, bonds, ETFs, and mutual funds?
• Do you need a will?
• Should you own real estate or a home?
• And twenty-one other topics

Many people are told to plan their retirement to live on 70-80% of their pre-retirement income. I have been retired for four years and had no intention of sitting around reading books. I travel, write, golf, hike, enjoy good red wine, and eat out, among many other activities. We sold our home and lived and traveled in our RV in the winter and on our boat in the summer. This is an expensive lifestyle, and I have hobbies that cost money.

I am not a financial planner, tax professional, or attorney. I do not offer financial investing or legal advice. I learned at an early age the importance of savings and living below my means to enjoy all life phases. I was always frugal but enjoyed taking vacations and participating in healthy activities. Live within your means and have savings for emergencies no matter your income.

Part of enjoying all the phases of your life, from working to retirement, is planning like you will live forever and living like tomorrow may not happen. That is balance. However, to make this happen, you save for the future, live in the present, and forgive yourself for the past.

I have been retired for four years and am traveling the United States. I have also taken trips overseas. I have never worked for an employer with a pension plan (a retirement plan where the company pays you a fixed amount when you retire), so I am living on everything I have saved in all my retirement and non-retirement accounts. I still create a budget and evaluate my net worth monthly, and when I have unexpected expenses, I adjust in other areas. Owning a boat and an RV truly has unexpected costs. Owning an RV is like driving your home down the road at 70 mph; many things can and do go wrong. I even authored another book on Full Time RV Living: The first six months.

In addition to knowing how to set up a budget, analyze your expenses, and calculate your net worth, you need to enjoy the journey, have fun, stay motivated, and be healthy. You need to visualize your ideal situation and be grateful for everything you have. I believe in the Law of Attraction. Your mindset and motivation are just as important as doing the tasks. Let us start attracting that money to live the life we want.

When your finances are organized, you will know precisely what money you have coming in and what you have going out, allowing you to make sound decisions when it comes to spending. You will have money left after you meet all your obligations to plan. You can then have your money work for you.

Read the entire book and then revisit the pages where you want to start concentrating, building a plan, and setting goals. The topics are in alphabetical order, not in order of importance. By reading the entire book first, you will have a fabulous overview and then can concentrate on the areas of interest.