Saving

Ever hear of the story of the grasshopper and the ant?
The grasshopper was a fun loving, worry about it later type who sang and danced the summer months away at the disco- tech, which had a ridiculous cover to get in each night. The ant, loved to sing and dance as well, so he did so in his shower, each morning before work. The ant worked hard to save up enough food for the winter because he knew he would need it later. When winter time came, the grasshopper looked in his home and found all kinds of fashionable items, but no food! The ant, however, had enough food to buy a karaoke system and host a big party, with enough food to comfortably last the winter.

This story is all about idleness. If you want to have a comfortable future, you need to start storing away some food for the winter (retirement). Even if you don't want to look THAT far ahead, you should be saving a little each month for emergencies. If you don't have health insurance, or you don't have a credit card- what will you do if you're in some major accident? Rely on family to help you out? What about when you want to buy a home- will you have a stash saved up? Now is the time to start saving! Right now. The sooner the better for you- its called the Rule of 72.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_72#Choice_of_rule

The rule of 72 helps you predict how much you will approximately save based on your bank's saving interest rate.

Example: Say you put $500 in your savings account, which has a 9% interest rate. If you divide 72, by 9, that = 8. That means, 8 years before your investment doubles and becomes $1000. Sixteen years before it doubles again and becomes $2000. This is assuming that you're not adding to this investment through the years. You see though, with this rule, that time is on your side. The longer you have to let that investment double, the bigger pot you'll have at the end of the rainbow.

Saving is the most basic, and almost hardest thing to get people to do. The present seems much more important sometimes. However, if you keep dipping into your savings, it will not be able to build! Therefore you should get real and know thyself. Set aside an amount that you can handle, not an amount that will take away from your present needs. 5% is a great amount to start. Say you get $300 a week. That's only $15 that you'd probably waste on an impulse buy that instead, you will pay to yourself. If you're able to save 10% of your income, even better!

If you want to wait until after the holidays to start this crazy new idea of saving- make it a New Years resolution- but, uhhhhhh remember when you promised yourself last year that you'd stick to a rigid workout schedule? Yeah, just make sure to keep this resolution. ;-)

Well hello there!

I'm not gonna lie, I'm nowhere near an expert at finance. In fact, I never saw myself being interested in this sort of thing- I'm an actor! But being a young twenty something in a big city like Los Angeles makes you realize, hmmmmm....you have to do things for yourself. Part of doing things for yourself is managing that little green monster called MONEY. Most people in my field don't even start thinking about things like IRA's, investing or saving until they're in their thirties. Even then, they may not know how best to utilize their income.

I've had the excellent opportunity to work under an ex-IRS financial planner as his receptionist. I've completed an H n R Block Tax Course for personal returns and I've started reading Personal Finance For Dummies and Investing For Dummies, both by Eric Tyson, M.B.A. (Which means he has a Master's Degree in Business Administration). I'll probably be referring to Tyson a lot in this blog, as his concepts are very easy to understand and make perfect sense.

So I thought, as I learn- why not share these basic concepts with my peers, family and friends. After all, money DOES NOT BUY HAPPINESS, but it is something that when organized, can bring you a more secure life. You'll eventually be able to buy that vacation home in Vermont, to take that cruise to Jamaica, to retire in your own private paradise- or simply to better pursue your dreams in life!

Now that I've talked a little about me: if you readers have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them! I may not post daily, but I'll be on this blog often, so ask away!