Category: Finance

Financial Tips

Keeping up with the Joneses

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Inflation is >9% year over year. That weekly grocery bill is adding up. You are wondering where all your money is going!

It’s times like these that you wish you didn’t buy that expensive car with $700 per month payments. Its time like these that you wish you didn’t live in that $1 Million home. It’s times like these you wish you didn’t blow thousands on fancy vacations. And for what? To look rich??!?! Trust me….the richest people I know like in the modest home, drive a fully paid off older car, and wear jeans from Costco. If you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and read The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley.

It’s easy to spend money when times are good, but you need to have savings in place to ride out the bad times. Most people don’t have a savings account…. or if they do, they don’t have much saved. Before you start buying all of these expensive things, make sure to have a nest egg in place. So go ahead and start saving!

Challenge: Make it simple and save 20% of each paycheck in some sort of savings account or split across multiple accounts (401K, traditional savings, bonds, etc). “

Whatever your income, always live below your means” – Thomas Stanley

Limit Spending – Food

With the current inflationary environment…everything is more expensive these days. We recently went to Chick-Fil-A as a family and it cost us $35.That’s $35 for three people to eat fast food…..crazy times.

The latest annual inflationary numbers were published on September 13, 2022 and inflation is at 8.3% for the last 12 month period ending August 2022. This means that goods and services have become 8.3% more expensive then the same time last year. To put that into perspective, the annual rate between 2016 – 2020 has been between 1.4-2.3%. Americans everywhere are definitely feeling it!

One thing I would encourage people to do is to look at your monthly expenses to determine how much you are spending on food every month.

Are you doing any of the following?

Ordering Uber Eats or Doordash multiple times per week? Those fees add up….also let’s be real…the food comes cold half the time.

Going out to happy hours multiple times per week with co-workers?

Eating at restaurants multiple times per week?

Buying unnecessary snacks or drinks every day?

Challenge: If you are doing any of these things, try and give them up for 1 month. After the month, go back and see how much you saved!

-Jon