Wise people learn from their mistakes. Very wise people learn from mistakes made by others. This and the next couple of posts are will hopefully make you very wise, by learning from financial mistakes I have made (and continue to make). I hope you will avoid them as you plan for and use your money. Why 7 years? That is how long I have been…
Read MoreMost of us view the new year as a clean slate, a chance to correct the wrongs of previous year at midnight. As we approach 2013, this is a good time to think of things you would like to do differently, especially when it comes to personal finances. Today I want to write about three things you should consider doing faithfully in 2013 if you’re…
Read MoreMost of us have been socialized that fun with friends and loved ones must involve spending some money and “going out” in one way or the other. When you need to catch up with a friend, the most instinctive thing to do is to meet at a coffee house, or a bar (and have fun over a game of football). Most of us don’t consider…
Read MoreThe greatest barrier to financial responsibility is that we are afraid of adopting a miser lifestyle. We are afraid of focusing so much on saving that we fail to enjoy life. A budget feels like spending prison, and a frugal lifestyle sounds like a life with absolutely no fun. This isn’t always the case, and this kind of thinking is a product of our socialization,…
Read MorePersonal finance blogs, mine included can be very discouraging. Every writer seems to have found the secret to financial success, they seem to be well on their path to wealth, while you the reader keeps slipping back into habits they warn you against day after day. And you wonder what about them is special, and why do they seem to do it so easily? If…
Read MoreToday’s guest post is by Kelly Spors, a writer with RothIRA.com, a leading retirement and Roth IRA resource. A former Wall Street Journal reporter, Kelly has written about small business and personal finance for The New York Times, Entrepreneur magazine, Yahoo! and SmallBizTrends.com. Enjoy! A credit score above 700 can open many doors for you financially, making it much easier to obtain a mortgage, car loan…
Read MoreThere’s a lot of debate online as to whether an emergency fund is necessary, and if so, how much is sufficient. In Kenya, the first isn’t valid. We are in such an unpredictable economy, that an emergency fund should be compulsory. I believe you need at least 3 months living expenses set aside (separate from your savings and investment). 3 months is safe, 6 months is even better….
Read MoreHuman beings are natural procrastinators, and our savings decisions are no different. We prefer consuming now, promising ourselves to save more once we get a pay rise to recover lost ground. This rarely happens, as increased pay often results to a corresponding increase in our standard of living, until we get to a point where we simply have to do something to recover. How do…
Read MoreIf there’s one issue that has been extensively talked about by personal finance bloggers and websites in the last two or so years, it is methods to pay off debt. The financial crisis triggered (and was triggered by) unprecedented levels of consumer debt, and at a time when world inflation is at an all time high, salaries are declining with massive lay offs being announced…
Read MoreI have written quite a bit on saving on cars and car expenses before. The most recent post gave the options you have, should you decide to buy a used car locally. Here we talked about purchasing cars, and whether it makes sense to take a loan to buy a car, and on this post I gave 5 practical tips to save on gas. If…
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