How to have a successful financial life in college if your mother and your father are not able to support you or don't want to support you? It's not as hard as you would think at first.

Of course it requires work from your part and planning but you must know that in the end it's you that's reaping the rewards.

Check this nice article at brokegradstudent.com for a very nice article list that gets you to many different blogs with various ideas to inspire you and give you practical steps.

http://www.brokegradstudent.com/50-tips-ideas-resources-on-saving-money-...

Happy reading!

I just found this article on the Accumulating Money forum at the following address:
http://www.accumulatingmoney.com/top-10-reasons-people-spend-more-than-t...

and it discusses the top 10 reasons why people spend more than they earn. Please check it out, it may teach you a thing or two :)

In my opinion the biggest reasons why people spend more than they earn is the excessive use of the credit cards, the general lack of financial education(which is the biggest reason) and the ignorance to check your situation every now and then to see how good or bad you are.

According to one study, in US approx. 45% of the population spent more than they earned in 2007. That is a big number and certainly some companies make much money from this situation especially with the current recession and the possibility that many people will go bankrupt because they spend every paycheck and don't think about saving money.

Do you have other reasons why people spend more than they earn? If you I want to hear from you, tell me your opinions :)

Did you know that if you smoke a pack of cigarettes per day at a price of $9 per pack and your age now is 30 by the time you reach 65 which is the age of retirement you could have $1,033,634.71 if you would invest that money in something that would get you a compounded interest of 10% per year? I know there's a lot to know and these numbers are not something you hear everday but still ... that's a lot of money! I repeat you don't spend a million dollars, you spend much less than that, and the exact sum is $113,400 but with the compounded interest(interest over interest year by year) your money goes up exponentially. I found this interesting smoking calculator on the following website: http://www.wheredoesallmymoneygo.com/smoking-a-pack-a-day-can-cost-you-m... and I just realized that this smoking habit is very unhealthy both for the body and for the wallet :) Pretty smokey math if you ask me :)

All great things come to those who save.

This quote is original as far as I know and it reflects something I really believe. It may not be all great things, but still savings are very very important, so important that they are a constant throughout the history of finance starting from the ancient Babylon city going till our days. In these times, we as normal people have more money than we had in all history and have greater possibilities to spend them them much faster than we make them. That is not necessarily a problem even though it's a thing to consider, but the fact that we have so many possibilities to spend the money made us at first ignore what we learned at home from our parents when we were young kids, and then to forget alltogether the fact that we should from time to time put some money aside in a piggy bank.

Now some people might say that if one puts $1000 in a bank due to the inflation rate and lately with our recession in one year from now, we'll have less than our interest could compensate, and I fully agree with those people. Putting money in a bank is not an investment, you're only gonna lose them. But then again you must create this essential habit, a habit of putting money aside, because even if you lose some of that money, it's better to have the rest, and not spend it all on various stuff. Another very important reason to learn this habit is that the right time will come when you'll have a small treasure and will be able to use that treasure for something you like, or invest it in something that will bring you more money like some stock actions with dividends or a house that you will rent, or who knows what other type of business or investment opportunity will find your way. Opportunities are always lurking and searching for people that are ready for them. In order to be ready, you have to be able to recognize an opportunity, but also to be able to take advantage of that opportunity. Otherwise, at the end of the day, you'll only gonna whine that so many opportunities passed right in front of you but you didn't have enough money to seize them. I don't know about you, but I feel so much joy when I see my small fortune getting bigger and bigger, but how much of our paycheck or general income should we start putting aside? Some say as much as you can, other say 10%, other say 30%, while even others say that you should start with 1%, and the list could go on. I say that 1% is good for making a habit, but very soon you're gonna want more :) 10% might be the perfect sum, and this number comes from very old times in the Babylonian era, in the form of pitoresque stories that describe how the city of Babylon became so rich and powerful in a world of instability and in the desert. At that time there were also very rich people and very poor people but The Richest Man in Babylon spread his teachings to 100 teachers which at their turn spread what they learned to even more people, but only in the city of Babylon. One of these teachings is to keep 10% of what you earn and live with the rest of 90% even though it might be harder, but to understand that your general living habits won't be affected that much. I tried and applied this strategy it worked pretty well :) I started praising my little treasure and as time passed I could think of nothing else than how to make money so that I can put 10% of that money in my treasure at home. Again I say, it's not important where you keep that money and with what interest if any. The idea is to develop a habit because we as humans are habit oriented. The strategy worked very well and my life didn't change a bit, I saw that everyone was right, my lifestyle didn't change at all, but there was a side effect. I wanted more. So I started saving more... I started saving 20% and 30% and you could say that that is not a biggie, after all there's more money in the piggy bank... Well the greed starts to come in and you want to save more and spend less. That thing alone can mess up your whole life. I learned this lesson fast and I'm glad. At one point I started to save 10% out of everything I spend, not out of everything I earn and that was also a good thing, but it makes things much more complicated than they need to be. My calculations were simple: If I save 10% out of everything I spend, if I have $1000 at the beginning of the month, and up till next month I spend $600, then I keep $60 plus the $340 that remain in my bank account anyway. This was futile and gave me so much to calculate and crunch every time I paid a dollar from my pocket. I started calculating every day how much money I spent that day and how much I needed to keep, and it happened that sometimes I didn't have enough money in my wallet to take out and put in the piggy bank, and I would leave that for the next day when I would go to the ATM to extract more and put it that evening in the piggy bank. This made my life so much complicated. Remember the point here is to develop a healthy habit and be paid while doing it and not to further complicate your life and for that sole purpose the 10% paid just when you receive the money, is the best strategy there is. After all, one should pay himself first and then the others. Some say that we should keep more than 10%, Robert Kiyosaki says we should keep 30%, 10% for savings, 10% for charity, and 10% for investments and he also emphasizes that the main idea is to get a good habit of paying ourselves first. Well this might be too much but for some people but also has the advantage to teach you that if you have enough to give away, then you have more than enough to live and that is a very good way of thinking. You might not have enough for everything you want to do, but you have enough to live and give away to your favorite charity, be it church or a hospital or anything else. Who knows, maybe you'll start a charity fund if you don't find one that you truly believe in. This amount of 30% might be too much at the beginning knowing that you already have other habits of spending your money month by month, but eventually you'll get to this amount or maybe more. Whatever amount you reach, I am strongly against saving more than 50% if it's a normal paycheck and not various passive incomes from various investments that you made over the time. An investment will only get you more money to save and to invest more, and by doing so you can take your cut and live off it, knowing that your cut will only get bigger with time and you'll only get more money while helping the world spin by doing smart investments. Savings are very important both for people and for businesses, a business can benefit widely especially in these times when the economy is heading for a serious slow down. Of course if everyone of us would save 10% or more day by day, the economy will suffer theoretically, but at the end of the day people will find themselves with more money at hand and being able to do more with the same money. One could buy more because he/she doesn't have to pay the bank with interest and actually use that interest. Also what happens when the unthinkable strikes? One could say that's what we have insurance for, and I agree, but you see insurance doesn't cover everything that could happen, and usually for the things that are riskier, insurance costs more. Financial education and knowledge are not easy to understand for the beginner, but as time passes and you evolve and learn more and apply what you learn you will see that this one pays and pays very well. Whatever you do, you must know that you should not break your lifestyle and concentrate more on making money rather than saving money, but still be able to pay yourself first and grow your treasure! Don't wait to save 10% when you'll make your million, start this healthy habit today!