Finances and Dollar Strecher

I forget what a great resource the The Dollar Stretcher is. I always find an article or two of interest.

This weeks Story is excellent and bears repeating...

If you want to live within your means and live with little or no debt... here are some good tips (as adapted by me for my personal goals)

1. Credit Cards: Jeff and I have two. One in the US, to maintain US credit ratings and for use when in the US. Paid off every month. One American Express issued in Singapore, for use for Travel only. EVERYTHING else is cash only.

2. Pay off debts before incurring new ones. Good goal, have not gotten there yet. With our student loan debt, this is not realistic (SHORT TERM) but as a long term goal it is very good.

3. Mortgage payment can be covered by one salary. We only have the mortgage on our rental property, so our goal is to make sure rent pays for mortgage and taxes.

4. Living Expenses. We do really well here in Singapore, our food budget, for the most part, even though the kids are older and eat more and we have an additional adult to feed (Nancy) we do alright. I am trying to buy more in bulk and store it. May buy a big freezer to assit with this and cut down on grocery costs even more buying in bulk and freezing.

5. Eating out... well we gotta work on that. Don't spend much otherwise on entertainment, maybe one movie a month...

6. Buy as much as possible used (Books etc). In Asia this is more difficult, but we try to get as many books as possible from used bookstores and we are big dumpster divers(ok... curbside shoppers is more appropriate.

The rest of the article is more personal to the author, but still gives valid points. I recomend checking out the website for more great ideas on living frugally.

Simply,

K