It is 3 a.m. and you are still awake, trying to figure out
how you are going to pay all your bills this month and still have money for
petrol and food. Insomnia and stress, caused by financial woes, are often the
cause of other health-related problems.
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Unless you are in good health, you will also find it
impossible to hold down a full-time job, in which case your finances could also be a bit tricky. So looking after both health and finances should be
priorities in anyone's life.
The rest of this site is concerned about your physical
health, so this one article will deal with financial health. So what can you do
to become more healthy financially?
Open
your own account and check your statements regularly. Don't do the ostrich head-in-the-sand thing - it will just make matters worse.
Use a cash or a debit card rather than cheques, because cards are simply cheaper.
Work according to a budget, rather than simply spending until the money is
finished.
Once you start borrowing money to pay other debt, the alarm bells should ring. You need to reduce your expenses or increase your income to get out of this
one.
Try never to buy household goods on credit – once you start paying interest on things such as food purchases, you are going into a downward spiral.
Buy things such electricity, airtime for the cellphone and the Telkom line on
prepaid vouchers. In this way you have more control over how much you spend
on these things.
Give children a fixed amount of pocket money, rather than having them constantly nag you to buy things for them. Children can be very persuasive and
manipulative. And bang goes your budget.
Minimise the number of accounts you have. The
temptation is always there to spend money you don’t have, for which you
pay dearly later on. Buy now, suffer later.
Have an emergency fund, equal to at least one month’s full salary. It is
expensive to do things like plumbing repairs or buying a new tyre on your
overdraft.
Learn to tell people you are broke when you are. Many people have found themselves going into debt in order to join friends in expensive activities they simply cannot afford. If you do this once a year on a special occasion, no problem, but every month, no.
When people ask you what you want for your birthday or Christmas, have a list of things you really need. It is much better to receive new underwear or a toaster than yet another green vase for your garage collection.
Buy groceries in bulk once a month rather than impulse buying at smaller more expensive shops.
When you find something that is really a nice and inexpensive gift, buy a few for future use.
Try to pay more than the bare minimum on outstanding accounts.
This will decrease the interest that you pay.
Learn
to distinguish between the things that you want and the things you really
need. This is a difficult one.
Make sure you have adequate medical aid coverage. Nothing can deplete your finances so completely as a sudden serious illness.
There is nothing wrong with buying secondhand appliances or cars – it will cost you a small amount to have them checked out by an expert and you can save
thousands.
If you are unable to meet your debt repayments, speak to your creditors –
don’t just keep quiet, as this will be interpreted as an unwillingness to
pay. Make arrangements to pay off a certain minimum amount, either by debit
order or post-dated cheques – if these payments are made regularly, no
action may be taken against you.
Taking a good multivitamin regularly could prevent expensive visits to the doctor.
At least once a month, go out for a pizza and/or a movie – you work hard for
your money and should have some enjoyment from it other than paying the
bond.
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