Getting a pay raise is a wonderful feeling. Especially if you know you’ve been working hard and grinding it out all year long. It feels good to be compensated for your time and efforts. What should you do with this new influx of cashflow… Splurge? Celebrate? Save more? Attack debt? Invest? There are so many different things you can do. Why not do them all !!! I’ve gotten 3 pay raises since I landed my first job in 2013. I didn’t change my spending habits much. Yeah I like to have a little bit more fun and shop every now and then but I made sure my priorities came first. I’ve always increased my monthly contributions to my online savings account. Then, I increased my monthly payments towards my car note to pay off the loan quicker and save on time and interest. Lastly, I …show more content…
With extra income now flowing in, it leaves you room to accomplish more goals. It’s always good to get into the habit of saving money. You can save up for traveling, emergency funds, birthdays, Christmas etc… Attack Debt Freeing up yourself from consumer debt would not only bring you a personal satisfaction but it would also give you more disposable income to pursue other financial goals. If you’re paying $300 a month on a car note and pay off your car guess what… You now have an extra $300 in your pockets to do whatever you may please. Reducing expenses also feels like a pay raise if you think about it. Without the car note that’s an extra $3,600 a year to your net worth. Invest more If you defer a certain percentage of you earnings to a 401k your company will adjust your contributions with your new pay increase automatically. If you don’t have a 401k you can always invest into an IRA or taxable investment account. There are other ways to invest too. You can pay for a class or certification that will increase your earning potential. You can now save up to start a small business. Buy books, take online courses
While many Americans today have a very weak will to work hard or improve themselves, a strong motivating force—such as debt—would surely encourage the nation as a whole to become more productive. On the one hand, Americans today are lazier than ever: only a small percentage works more than twenty hours a day. On the other hand, the debt-driven American will push himself or herself to pay off his debts, in order to prevent his home from being repossessed, becoming determined to work daily twenty-five hour shifts. The debtor also will develop a new sense of priority in order to further fuel his motivation for hard, debt-paying work. Just as the physically unfit will cut sweets, carbohydrates, and food altogether from his or her diet, the debtor will cut such things as medical insurance, electricity, indoor plumbing, and even a home in order to be able to spend more time working to meet minimum monthly payments . After all, like the “more than 600,000 homes [that] entered some stage of foreclosure” (Foreclosures), debtors without homes are able to spend more time working, don’t have to pay the bills, and don’t have to pay property taxes, encouraging them to work even harder to pay off their debts. How productive this power of debt can be is illustrated when “a [five-year-old girl’s mother trafficked the child to pay off a drug debt” (Netter). If a woman can be so motivated by debt that she would sell her own
But many people still end up spending all their income and leaving themselves with no savings. With regards to this, Mr.Chilton has a very simple solution, “Save first. Spend the rest.”(Chilton 76). I agree with his lesson to save first as saving first and then spending will make sure you won’t end up spending everything. A similar hypothetical situation would be that you have an assignment due tomorrow but you want to play some video games. In this scenario, it would be wise to finish the assignment first because it is the most important and then play video games with your remaining time. Saving is the same; it is the most important to you need to save first. It doesn’t matter how you save, just save. You can use “Payroll deduction, automatic withdrawal, pre-authorized chequing”(Chilton 77), just save first. As well, you have to save right now and “not in a few months when you’re hoping to finally have time to craft a financial plan(Chilton 77)”. When I get a part-time job in the summer, I will start an automatic savings plan with Tangerine in which Tangerine will deduct money to put into my savings every time I get my pay cheque. This way, I’ll definitely save some of my money before I
The new wage increases begin with the December 24, 2017 pay period and will be reflected on the January 12, 2018 paycheck.
Responding to Debt - Money is also intimately linked with our inner lives. Money helps shape the contours of our day-to-day lives. It dictates where and how we live, what and how much we buy and, to some extent, our position in the social order. Once someone gets into debt, once there, being in debt can trigger unsettling emotional responses — especially if the debts are perceived as unmanageable or overwhelming. It's rare for someone to never have money problems. Trouble happens: jobs disappear, marriages fail, people get sick, homes lose their value and bills pile up. It goes without saying that making money, spending money and thinking about money take up a substantial portion of our lives. Personal debt is not bias, no one is immune. One day we find ourselves in the middle of a financial
Take an honest look at what you're spending. Do you really need a gourmet coffee every morning? Is cable tv that important when you can easily stream a ton of entertainment choices with your high speed internet? Consider where you can cut back, then do it. Apply every dime that you save to building your emergency savings. Watching the numbers grow is the best motivation to keep going.
First of all, one of the raise’s advantages is helping the overall economy by providing more liquidity to the employees, therefore the more they earn the more they spend as consumers. (Patterson, 2015) For instance, spending money on shopping, travelling, entertainments, activities and events leads to produce more, which will encourage investments. Thus, it will boost the economic-cycle.
Since the start of my senior year I have been considering the most effective ways of saving for
4. Create a Budget. The Huffington Post suggests using the "50:30:20 budget rule". The rule says fifty-percent of your budget goes toward needs like housing, insurance, and transportation. Thirty-percent goes towards wants like clothing, services, and entertainment, and twenty-percent goes into savings. Unless you're in debt-elimination mode which requires you to save less and pay more.
Starting Out: It's not always possible to set a career-long savings plan. New workers should consider and take advantage of an employer-based plan and contribute to match their employer's. In addition, Independent Retirement Accounts can help with your saving.
More and more people I know are falling into debt. Some of them have been able to clear their debts and get on with their lives, while others have struggled to repay what they owe and are still finding it difficult to get on top of their finances.
Industry Profit: Profits are continuing to increase at an annual rate of about five percent. You could likewise expect your wage to increase, too!
Why is personal debt such a huge problem for so many of us? The solution is not simple and can seem like it is impossible to find. The reason for this is simply because we are all different in the way we think, feel and address issues in our lives.
3. Begin with 3% of your pay going into retirement savings. Each raise/promotion you get increase it by 1% until you have reached your employer’s maximum match rate. Then add the 1% into an IRA until you have reached the percentage that results in your desired retirement account.
Always keep a tab on your cash flow. You should know how much you are earning and how much you are spending. Keep downloading your credit card and bank account statements to scrutinize. Sometimes we tend to overlook the expenses and then it hit us hard. Maintain your own personal balance sheet listing what you have and what you owe. Review these information annually to find out if you are heading towards your goal. If not, you will know where you are going wrong and can re-work in those areas.
Alternating these methods lets you reduce your overall debt faster while rewarding you by eliminating debts a little faster.