Make Your Paycheck Count

This post is about ways of maxafication-izing your money if you earn wages as an employee. This is not about the recession or depression. Even when the country is not going through economic crises you can be in your own personal crisis. There is a lot of information out in the world and all of it is not geared to keep your money in your pocket. Well let’s get to it. Here are some tips to changing your thoughts and actions.

1. What you are paid defines your worth.
Huh! Nothing could be farther from the truth. Most jobs pay according to what value you contribute to the business and are limited by how much business revenue your employer takes in. Sometimes you will find that the employer is not paying according to the value you give. It may be time to start looking for another job. Last thought! Your character (thoughts, behavior, integrity, consistent actions, and interactions) defines who you are and your worth.

2. I cannot save anything because all my money goes for bills.
Change your thinking. Even if all you do is put aside $5 to start your savings from every paycheck you will find out you do not miss it. None of your bills are $5. After 3 to 4 paychecks of doing this increase the amount by $2 per paycheck. In a year you will have saved about $2600. Over 2 years $10,620 will have been saved. The key is doing it day by day. Consistency is what you are building. Building a daily habit that does not depend on whether you are having a good or not so good day. My wife and I started out with dimes and made a game of saving the dimes (we still do). The game was who can contribute more. Of course it is not fair getting dollars broken down into dimes. The dimes come as result of a purchase that gives change back.

3. I am already making as much as I can.
This is more an emotion than reality. You can give yourself an instant raise by resetting the exemptions on your W-4 with your employer. I have personally gone up as far as 10 exemptions to take home more cash; though my wages overall did not change at all. One strategy is to lower your exemptions during the first half of the year to pay more taxes up front. During the second half of the year raises the exemptions to have more cash at that time. This could make a difference for the holidays. Consult your tax professional to determine the correct level for you.

4. I cannot discipline myself to not spend.
Many times to break a habit we need to have someone we are accountable to helping us maintain the “straight and narrow” An example is making saving automated into a Christmas fund you cannot access until Christmas is near. Then you just reinvest the money in the same fund year after year. Do this by direct deposit. Ask the bank to automatically roll funds over to the next year. If this is not allowed take the money out and then redeposit it. Check with your local bank or credit union to see if they have or know of a financial institution that has this type of fund.

5. I can take on a second job to get out of debt.
You can make some more money by taking on a second job. But remember that is using your greatest commodity. That commodity is time. This may not be the best use of your time; especially over a period of more than 3 months. Consider investigating how to invest in yourself to raise your rate of pay, not spend more time at a reduced rate. Be ready to invest in yourself to make you more valuable. This way you are investing, not spending your time. Take classes, seminars, online tutorials, specialized programs. Low cost sources are libraries, Chambers of Commerce, and local Charities hold classes on many things that can get you started in the right direction.

6. The money just seems to go so fast.
This is a feeling that is real but often is a matter of changing our behavior. Place a set amount of money in cash at your disposal. Challenge yourself to see if you can go a week and keep 75% of the cash. Then see if you still have 50% of those funds left at the end of 2 weeks. You may fail initially yet that failure allows you to progress a little at a time until your practice is a habit and success. Be careful of the reasons you spend besides need. Many times money is spent as an emotional reliever.

These are a few tips I wanted to share. Add some of your tips to the list! Share them as a comment so that others can learn by what you know!

Here is another post with some great tips on saving money and cutting cost. http://www.ehow.com/how_5028093_live-frugally-recession.html

 Hi! My name is Vonzel Sawyer. I am a husband, father, and grandfather. I started blogging to share from my experience, knowledge, wisdom, instruction, and understanding to help persons maxamize and magnify the positive in their life. That is why I used the terms "maximum" and "magnification" and combined them into a single word "maxafication". Just like something can be magnetized or winterized. I want to impact people to live largely and fully each day!