Michelle Cagen C.P.A. - Master Your Finances: All You Need to Eliminate Debt and Increase Savings

Mastering your personal finances isnt just about cashing checks, paying bills, and meeting your monthly obligations. It is about accumulating enough wealth to achieve family goals and aspirations through the application of sound financial principles and behavior.

According to the Bible, money answereth all things and the love of money is the root of all evil. And, as the Beatles put it, money cant buy you love. So what is money? What does it mean to us? Is it good or evil? Does it give us happiness or misery? Is it something we should strive for or a goal in itself?

Regardless of your personal feelings and approach to money, at the very least you could hardly question that it is a means to an end. Unless you are able to build your own house, farm your own food, and make your own clothes, money is the vehicle to basic sustenance. Beyond that, we can all agree that money helps to achieve education, allow you to travel, and give you the ability to spend time doing things other than work. That is, money can make your life better and easier. And thats what personal finance is all aboutmanaging money with an end in mind of achieving goals, while avoiding the problems that arise when there isnt enough money.

In economics, money is just a commodity. This may sound kind of strangeas if money could be traded around in bushels, barrels, or boxes; stored in silos and warehouses; or sold in lots and shipped in rail cars to the highest bidder. Well, thats actually truethough in a figurative, not a literal, sense. Money is stuff just like the stuff we buy with it. We use it to receive the value of what we produce (by working, selling, or investing) and to transfer that value to something else (food, transportation, clothing, shelter, or pleasure) that we need or want. Having money, by itself, doesnt really mean anything about wealth; as we know, you can have money in your pocket but owe $3,000 on your credit card bill.

There is a reason why you spent your hard-earned money for this book. Perhaps your finances are out of control, and you find there is always too much month at the end of your money. You want to get a rope around your current finances, to stay afloat month to month, and to be prepared for those unexpected expenseswhen your car breaks down or when you get those insurance bills (which shouldnt be unexpected anyway). Or perhaps you are in decent financial shape, financially fit as it were, and you want to fine-tune your finances and build wealth towards achieving some aspirational goals. The following are the most common personal finance issues:

Overspending: Almost everyone succumbs to the temptation to overspend at one time or another, but chronic overspending is a serious problem. Debts pile up quickly and form a barrier to achieving other financial and personal goals.

Surprises: Failing to plan in advance can give you an unpleasant surprise as you suddenly find yourself struggling to pay those surprise insurance and utility bills at the end of the month. Remember: Lack of awareness creates overspendingand debt.

Procrastination: People tend to put things off, particularly for long-term goals and needs. Saving for retirement or college is more effective if you start earlier rather than later, even if you start in small increments.

Using emotion, not reason: Allowing your emotions to cloud your mind can result in poor financial decision-making. Deals that look too good to be true usually are. Four-day weekends are fun and necessary at times, but are they really worth a thousand dollars? Reason must accompany emotions and feelings.

Financial personality clashes: What do you do if you are a spender and your spouse is a saver? You build a workable financial plan that relies on each persons strengths to carry it out.

Whatever your issues, this book will help you solve them and to develop a personal finance system combining tools and techniques with habits and behavior to achieve your objectives.

To begin, you need to have a good working definition of what personal finance is. The objective of managing your finances is to reach your and your familys goals, in terms of both keeping what you have and obtaining what you want. When it comes to personal finances, your family is in chargeeach family member is both the manager and the beneficiary. What does this mean? In a business situation, the managers and the beneficiaries (shareholders) are different parties. Managers manage business finance with the aim of achieving shareholder wealth. In government, officials manage finances for the benefit of the public. In the case of personal finance, you manage your own finances for your own benefit. Nobody does it for you. The process works better if everybody in the entity participates in this assignment. This means someone will have to take charge as a leader.

If you are in debt, you obviously have some work to do before you start accumulating wealth. Still, wealth should be the real objective of any personal finance-savvy individual or family. Active personal finance sets a mark, or goal, then provides the tools, techniques, and behaviors to reach that goal.

Personal finance uses a system of tools and techniques to achieve financial reward. You are undoubtedly already familiar with many of thembanking, investments, insurance, and retirement plans. Information describing these tools and how they work is widely available. However, successful personal finance means being able to put all the tools together to build a solid financial plan. Successful personal finance also means having the right attitude and discipline in daily life to carry out your plan. Tools without a plan wont work, and a plan without execution wont work either.