Soon We Will Be Rich, Rich I Say! ⇒

Christine and I have decided that it is time to reign in our free-spending ways and actually start saving more money. We have been contributing to RRSPs and RESPs regularly, but we should be much further ahead than we are, considering how much money we make. I am reading a decent book, Start Late, Finish Rich, that is mostly common sense, but it has been a catalyst for us to get sorted.

The main tenets of this book are Pay Yourself First, Spend Less and Save More. We have been pretty good at paying ourselves first, but really lousy at spending less. We used to be much better at it, but have gotten really, really lazy about it and got ourselves into a little debt. Nothing we can't handle, but a trend we don't want to continue.

So, here is our tentative plan:

• Make bi-weekly mortgage payments, instead of monthly. That will pay off our house sooner, which means our equity will build faster, which is a Good Thing.
• Review our spending to determine where our excess is and reduce unneccessary expenditures. This will be the hard one for me.
• Put more money away in RRSPs.
• Use cash, not credit to pay for EVERYTHING. Not that we have any CC debt, this is just a reminder about the value of the things we buy.
• Institute a "save before buying" policy for large items. We used to do this and would like to get back to it.
• Before buying anything substantial (say over $50), wait 48 hours. If we still want it after that, go buy it...with cash.
• Make regular payments to Mr. Credit Line, who has been getting a little more insistent recently.
• When making a purchase, ask ourselves, "Can we get this cheaper some how?"