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Live Happily
Within Your Means
You want to love your money, right? Then you've got to live well within your means. That's important at any age, but it's especially important when
planning for retirement, which often demands that you live on a fixed income. Not to mention that many of us are enjoying longer, healthier lives. Living
more years means needing more money and stretching our dollars.
The best way to stretch, save and spend wisely is to build a budget. Only 40 percent of Americans use a budget to plan their spending.1 But
60 percent of Americans routinely spend more than they can afford. A budget's end goal isn't to punish you, keep you from enjoying your golden
years or make you miserable. It's to keep your dreams of the moment and your long-term goals truly alive and golden.
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#8 Question Your Needs and Wants
What do you want?
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#9 Set Guidelines
We all have different budgets based on our needs and wants.
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#10 Get SMART
Wishful thinking has never made a budget work.
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#11 Add Up Your Income
To set a monthly budget, you need to know what's coming in.
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#12 Estimate Expenses
The best way to do this is to write down every penny you spend each month.
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#13 Figure Out the Difference
Once you've created your budget, keep records of your actual income and expenses.
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#14 Track, Trim and Target
Once you start tracking, you may be surprised to find you spend $50 a month on coffee or long calls to the grandkids.
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1 Chatzky J, Budget Building: Live Happily Within Your Means. PracticalMoneySkills.com. 2008.