FISCAL FITNESS

Barbara O’Neill, PhD, DFP, Extensions Specialist in Financial Resource Management, Rutgets University Cooperative Extension, (With all this following your name, how can you not be a financial guru?!) has four tips for “fiscal fitness”.

1. Pay yourself first by saving at least 10% of your total income every paycheck. If possible, have it deposited automatically into a savings account before you are tempted to spend it.

2. Save $1.00 a day by putting change in a can or jar, or by reducing daily expenses by $1.00. You should be able to save about $50.00 a month or $600 a year. Increase the amount to $2.00 per day, plus loose change and you’ll have over $1,000 in savings!

3. If you put $10.00 per day ($300) monthly toward paying off an $8,000 credit card balance at 16% interest, you could pay off the credit card debt in THREE years instead of decades.

4. Paying just $1.00 a day more than the minimum payment due on a $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 credit card balance with 17% interest will save you $7,624, $12,615, and $16,168, respectively in interest payments!