What is this blog all about

As you propably already guessed I am a single woman. I have a degree in business and I am making an average salary. I am not making a ton of money but enough to have a steady income. But instead of having a nice emergency fund and some savings, I don't. I know better than that so why on earth am I not being smart with my money?
As I said, I know how to manage money. I know my numbers and I understand that in order to accumulate financial security I should be spending less than is coming in. But somehow, the amount I am spending seems to equal my income, no matter how much or little my income is.. I need to figure out why I am sabotaging my own life and what I need to do differently. I've known this for a while know, yet nothing has changed so far. By having this blog I hope I will be forced to be honest to myself and to really start doing something about it.
My goal is to become wealthy, financially secure. To be more exact my goal is to be wealthy enough not be dependent of my 9 to 5 job for the rest of my life. To simplify, I have divided my goal into steps:

1. stop making debt
2. have an emergency fund
3. pay off high interest debts
4. start investing

And how am I going to do this?

1. cut down expenses
2. get more income
3. save money
4. invest
5. reinvest

Easy right? Just spend less than I make. So why haven't I been doing this before? Have you been using your money wisely? Weather you have or not, please leave a comment. All ideas are welcome!

The Rich dad

Now who wouldn't want to have one, so check this out. I stumbled across this website and ended up spending there hours.. The Rich Dad has a Power Pack that requires registration, but is absolutely free (no affiliate marketing here). And it really is worth registering for. There are a lot of good advise and what I especially loved are the tools for figuring out your finances. I literally spent hours there figuring out where I am and what I should be doing.
The man behind is Robert T. Kiyosaki. Well, actually according their biographs, there's a huge team of experts at The Rich Dad Company. But according to the Robert's biography, it all started from the bestseller Rich Dad Poor Dad, a personal finance book. Check it out, and please leave a comment!

“The poor and the middle class
work for money. The rich have
their money work for them.”

- The Rich Dad -

How to get out of debt - focus on the small things

When you owe a lot or you have a goal to purchase something big, it might seem overwhelming. But small amounts accumulate in to big amounts over time. So think about the little purchases and bad habits that you have and calculate what it amounts over time. Here is a table showing how the little becomes big over time.

A day	Week	Month	6 months	Year	5 years	10 years	20 years
0,1	0,7	3	18	36,5	182,5	365	730
0,5	3,5	15	90	182,5	912,5	1825	3650
1	7	30	180	365	1825	3650	7300
2	14	60	360	730	3650	7300	14600
3	21	90	540	1095	5475	10950	21900
4	28	120	720	1460	7300	14600	29200
5	35	150	900	1825	9125	18250	36500
10	70	300	1800	3650	18250	36500	73000
20	140	600	3600	7300	36500	73000	146000

This is also useful if you are thinking about getting extra income. It doesn't necessarily need to be a lot you're making if you are using it all for your debt payments or savings, or furthermore investing if you have no debt.

You can also calculate it another way. Let's say you're looking to save a 1000. How much would you need to save per day to accumulate the amount in a week, a month, several months or a year.

A day	A week	A month	2 months	3 months	4 months	5 months	6 months	9 months	A year (360 d)
1000	142,86	33,33	16,66	11,11	8,33	6,66	5,55	3,7	2,77

These calculations are made on the assumption there's no interest on the savings (or debt).

Getting out of debt – living on other people's money

As long as you have any debt, you're actually living on someone else's money. If you owe any money to someone else or if there's debt on your credit card then every cent you use is actually their money, not yours.

This is a good way to realize what it actually means when you have debt. This is also a good thing to consider every time you're about to purchase something. Would you use your credit card to buy a cup of coffee or a candy bar? I wouldn't. But when you have debt, it doesn't make difference if you use cash, you're actually buying on credit.

Another thing is to consider the real price for your purchases when using credit or paying in installments, but I will get back to this later.

Stop making more debt

Well, that's it, right? Stop making more debt. Done. Let's go to the next step.
No.
If you're a woman you propably have been on a diet at some point. Remember how you promised to start eating healthy and never eat junk food again. Sounds so easy, but it's not.
I've seen Suze Orman on Oprah a couple of times and she has given some good advise on how to get out of debt. Suze's advises are for people living in US and since I live in Europe not all her advices are directly applicable. However, I agree mostly with her advises on how to manage (credit card) debt.
I have two credit cards at the moment and what I am going to do is to cancel the other one, so I can't make more debt on it. Suze warns you not cancel cards so that your credit score (called FICO score in the USA) doesn't go down. However in my case I am not in need of any bank loan now and the bank can not change my mortgage terms on their own, so I have nothing to lose there at the moment. The other credit card I will still need to have because I have no emergency funds what so ever.. But I have taken this card out of wallet and sealed it in an envelope so that I am not to use it unless there actually is an emergency. I have also deleted my credit card information from all the online shops I have been using.
Now, I will pay minimum on the cancelled card and as much as I can for the active card. In addition of paying the minimum on the credit card bill, I will make another payment on my payday, paying everything I have left from the previous salary.
Does this make sense to you? Please leave a comment.