5 Things I Can’t Do Without

A few days ago I did my list of 5 things I can do without, 5 areas in my life where I thought we could cut out some wasteful spending.

Today I thought I would follow that up with a look at 5 things that I can’t do without, things that have the potential to help our bottom line. So here they are - 5 things I can’t do without:

1. Personal Finance Software: Currently I’m using two softwares to keep track of our finances - and using them both seems to work pretty well. First, we use Microsoft Money at our home to keep track of all our income and expenses. Both my wife and I use the software, and it allows us to start and keep a budget, track our 401k accounts, pay extra amounts on our mortgage or track our taxes throughout the year. When we’re on the go recently we have started using Mint.com to track our finances on the internet. You just enter your online account information, and it will help you track account balances, see spending trends, and compare your spending to other people across the nation. When doing that we realized just how out of control our fast food spending was. We’re still working on making an adjustment.
2. High Yield Savings Account: Make sure you signup for a high-yield savings account, and transfer over your savings and/or emergency fund from your local bank branche’s low interest checking or savings. We did this and we realized an extra savings of about 5-600 dollars a year. Not bad for just switching accounts! Unfortunately since the market is down, the interest rates on these types of accounts are dropping somewhat, but they’re still better than your local bank. Check here on fatwallet.com for a list of some of the best accounts and rates.
3. Emergency Fund: When my wife and I sold our townhouse a year and a half ago, one thing we did with some of the earnings from the sale was to create an emergency fund. We have enough in that fund now to be good for 6-8 months if we were to lose our jobs. We don’t anticipate that happening, but it is definitely good for the peace of mind to have that there. For some more discussion and details about emergency funds check out Consumerism Commentary or Funny about Money.
4. Library Card:I’ve only recently become more acquainted with our local library, and boy am I glad I did. They’ve got a ton of new release books, movies and CDs. I’ll never need to buy from Amazon or Barnes & Noble again! Not only do most libraries have books, but most will also have tons of audio books, DVD movies, magazines and more! Also, based on a tip from a commenter, Mr Klingon, we’ve found that you can get tons of free audio books online as well at sites like librivox.org, gutenberg.org or audiobooksforfree.com. So download those audio books and make good use of that free Ipod we wrote about last week!
5. 401K Account: It’s amazing how much money you can save when you fund your 401k account before you even get the paycheck. The wonders of compounding interest never cease to amaze. The earlier you get started on your retirement account, the more you’ll have later on. Trust me, you want to make sure you have one of these, especially if your employer will do a dollar for dollar match.

So there it is - a short list of things that I can’t do without. I’m sure that there are more things that I could put down, but those are some of the most important. What are some things that would be in your top 5?

LINKS:
5 Things I CAN do without

Tagged as: Commentary, tips