SERIES: How To Win With Money – Part 5

Welcome to another series here on the wildly popular I Was Broke. Now I’m Not. website. We’re passionate about helping YOU win with your money. In this series, we are going to be talking about a practical, step-by-step plan that you can use to take your finances to the stratosphere!

How To Win With Money

5.  Build savings to three months of expenses

Read step #5 again. Note that this level focuses on saving three months of expenses – not income. Because this follows level #4 (to eliminate all non-house, non-business debt), your monthly expenses should be much lower! In general, this level will take three to nine months to achieve.

It is amazing how much confidence this will give to you! Your ability to live is no longer wholly dependent upon an employer’s willingness to keep you. You can encounter financial challenges with substantially reduced stress. Even more, you are able to look beyond the current day and week and focus on “what could be.” It is at this step that you will begin to live in the vision and goals you documented at level one – the start of your journey to win with money.

Take a moment to determine how much your monthly expenses will be once you have eliminated all non-house, non-business debt. Now, multiply that number by three. This is your “Level 5 Savings Goal.” If you don’t have this much money saved right now, take a moment to think about how you might feel upon achieving this level. Let that feeling provide fuel to you as you progress up the nine levels required to truly win with money!

Read the entire series (available after 4/20/2013)

1 Comment

  1. Stephen at SE on April 17, 2013 at 11:58 am

    I remember having the realization about having an emergency fund that covered our expenses vs. or income. That made it a lot more manageable! It also makes it nice when you do things like pay off the house or lower your fixed expenses then you need even less for emergencies.



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