1001 Ways to Improve Your Personal Finances

Yesterday I posted Alexa von Tobel's video on the 5 Must-Follow Principles for Personal Finance.

Today I'm thinking about the small ways we can stop spending money on needless things, so we can put 20% of our income towards savings and the future.

I probably shouldn't start thinking though, because...

a. I will either stop, because I get bored with the idea

b. I will never get the bored with the idea (but you might)

So I'm setting an unreachable goal of sharing 1001 ways to improve your personal finances, because that just seems like the thing to do. The *one* at the end of the 1000 is for good measure and extra unreachableness.

Anyway, to improve your personal finances, like Alexa says, you should start by spending only 50% of your income on housing and related non-negotiables.

The rest?

Up for negotiation.

This means that fake eyelashes, fake nails, Botox, and new Maggie's Cotton Camisoles (maroon or dusty lilac) are not necessarily in the budget. (Yes, Alexa recommends you make a budget. At this point, I might lose credibility with you, because I have never lived by a budget. I just don't spend much money, and I have a fascination for doing things myself instead of paying someone else to do them. Not counting housework, of course. Or the construction of dusty-lilac camisoles.)

Okay, if you're still with me, here is today's health-care cost-avoidance tip, so you don't have to go to the dermatologist and pay for a nitrogen blast, should you happen to develop an unsightly wart just days before a big writer's conference (or any other inconvenient time, like next month before your first trip to the Farmer's Market for the new season. Yes, you'll save money at the Farmer's Market, as long as you don't get waylaid by the sweet man selling artisanal pickles.)

Here goes...


1001 Ways to Improve Your Personal Finances: Tip #1

Remove warts with duct tape. Not in a kind of rip-and-go fashion—like getting a waxing, which is not in your budget... ahem—but in a starve-the-little-unwanted-extra-body-blips approach. (Please do not attempt to use duct tape as weight-loss solution; that is not what is being recommended. Apply duct tape only to wart-affected area.)

That's it. Tip number one. I am not making this up. It works. And the duct tape will double as a household fix-it item. Unless you buy the girlie kind of duct tape, which, if you are a girlie, you might prefer.


BONUS (completely free of charge)...

Today's personal finances confession:

No, I did not buy the girlie duct tape. Yes, I bought two Maggie's cotton camisoles the other day. It was Lyla's fault. But the cotton-buy, um... fit the budget.



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1001 Ways to Improve Your Personal Finances: Tip #2—The Starbucks Challenge