While sure it’s great to have a garage full of nice cars, but if it means living beyond your means and spending more than you can afford, is it really worth putting yourself in that sort of financial hole? You know when you’re actually ahead with your finances is when you have built up an emergency fund, you’re out of debt, and are maximizing contributions to retirement. If you’re struggling to free up any extra money, you can look to some of money wastes first to try and avoid.
Not Keeping Up with Your Credit Score
While you may not think about credit score having to do with wasting money but think about what lenders look to when approving for a mortgage, loan, credit card, even a job these days, and that’s credit score. In order to take advantage of the best interest rates on the market you need to have excellent credit, so any short of that then you need to pull your report to make sure accounts are accurate and up to date, while monitoring your score on a monthly basis on credit card statements to make sure it’s climbing.
Paying Credit Card Interest
Speaking of interest rates, probably the highest you have in your name now comes with your credit card, which depending on the card, could be upwards of 16% APR, which once a balance starts to accumulate, paying the minimum is no longer an option if you’re looking to rid yourself the balance. The best way to handle a credit card responsibly is to charge what you’re able to pay off when the statement balance comes due, as otherwise overspending will send you straight into debt and can take years to get out of, so it’s best to avoid going down that road now.
Missing Out on Free Money
If you are able to handle credit card spending, then using the right credit card is important to make sure you take advantage of the best deals out there, which can be in the form of rewards. By making the purchases that you were going to be making anyways with a debit or another credit card, you can earn points and cashback that you would otherwise not be receiving. On a larger scale when it comes to free money has to do with retirement and making sure you check at work to see if you’re taking full advantage of any company-matching contributions as otherwise that could add up to huge amounts you are missing out on.
Paying Extra Fees
Life experiences are important when it comes to keeping a sane mind, but you can pay plenty of extra fees if you’re not careful. Taking buying tickets for instance. By the time you buy the face value ticket, say $40, you can expect at least $15 in service charges, plus processing fee, could turn a $40 into over $60, when if you just go to the box office you can have your pick of tickets without service charges, you’ll just have to plan in advance on getting there when they go on sale if it’s a popular event.