How to Not Be Broke

Being broke really stinks. I have had many periods in my life when I have been living just a paycheck away from disaster. When you have month left at the end of the money much more often than the other way around, it can make you feel helpless.

The stress of struggling to pay the bills and not having the means to actually get ahead even though you go to work every day can take a huge toll. Not only on your own peace of mind, but on your health, your relationships, your family and your partner.

It can even make you unhappy and less productive at your job. If you get caught in the trap of thinking that you just need a better paying job, you're problems will be solved. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work that way because you have to change how you deal with money, or else you just make more and spend more, still ending up broke.

Not being broke is a wonderful goal, but for many of us who have grown up in this era of commercialism, it isn't nearly as easy as it sounds. Along with the pressure to keep buying more things we also have to overcome the idea that making a budget and sticking to it is lame.

We don't even realize that our need to define ourselves by the things we buy and our negative attitudes about saving our money and cutting our expenses are simple attitudes that have been pushed onto us by various companies our whole lives. Everywhere you look, there is another commercial telling us that all of our problems will be solved if we buy this product. The happy people in the advertisements show us an image of how life “should” be. They aren't worried about their financial future, so why should we be?

But, when you examine it a little closer, you will realize that those happy people don't exist. They are figments of an advertisement company's imagination, and that buying a Rolex isn't going to turn us into those people. All it will do is make us people who have an expensive watch.

In order to not be broke, there are a few things you can do to help your financial bottom line today:

• Talk to a financial adviser – A Certified Financial Planner can help you look at your finances and come up with a plan to help you achieve your goals. Generally, they don't charge a huge fee and you don't have to be rich to benefit from their help.
  
  
• Adopt a “cash only” strategy – I know it is hard, but when you make the change back to using cash, you really will save some money. Credit cards and debit cards make money much less real. For me, online shopping is my downfall. I have my payment information saved with the companies I do business with and it never feels like I spent money because I just clicked a button. Using cash will prevent you from getting hit with overdraft charges or running up large credit card balances.
  
  
• Cut your expenses, or look for ways to get more out of the things you already have – This doesn't mean you can't have any fun. Take a look at what things you pay for each month and look for ways to save. It isn't a good idea to cut back too much on things you enjoy, because it just sets you up to make bad choices in other areas. For example, if you enjoy watching movies but cut out all of your cable channels, it is likely that you will start spending more on movie tickets and rentals than you were spending on your cable.
  
  
  Instead, look for unnecessary expenses, then search for ways to do more with what you have. I have cable and I subscribe to most of the additional channels. When I was looking for ways to save, I found that with the way I like to watch tv it was cheaper for me to subscribe to a streaming movie site and connect my television to my home network. Now, I don't really need to pay for all of those channels and the streaming movie plan was only $8 a month vs. $50 for the premium cable channels.
  
  
• Learn about financial planning – No one just automatically knows how to handle their money. It is a skill, and one that many of us lack. Especially for people under 40, who may not have ever been taught how to save by their parents. The 80s was a decade of excessive spending and families living well beyond their means. It wasn't the best time to have picked up an attitude of frugality. But, there is still hope. There are many wonderful books about financial planning that you can find at your local library.

What do you think is the best way to not be broke? Let me know in the comments.

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By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for PhillyJobsBlog, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.