For People Who Want Out of a Low Income Situation

My father and mother came out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. When I was born in the 1950s, the social family climate was different than it is now. The mother stayed home with the children and did the house work. The father went to work and made a living for the rest of us. The complaint about jobs was different than it is now. Today, people complain about having no jobs. In the 1950s and 1960s people complained about not having high paying jobs. In my situation from age 8 to 21 years old, because of a stable family life, it was easy for me to plan my life out from child hood to old age. Today, it is not as easy but it still can be done. All it takes is time, drive on your part, and determination.

Aside from government assistance, you can work your way towards financial freedom by taking little steps. These steps are taken over your life time. As long as you are disciplined and determined, you can well be on your way to the end of financial difficulty. You may have to start with government aid for you and your family. Your approval for your chosen government aid should be the time when you take steps so that you handle financial difficulties better.

Below are 5 steps you can take to have a healthier financial disposition:

1. Educate Yourself. Gather as much information as you can about financial management. You can make your money grow, as long as you know how you can achieve it. Immerse yourself in books, the internet, and talk to people who know about managing finances. This is how I started in life. I learned from people who understood how to develop good financial behavior and attitudes for my interest, not the interest of others such as banks, brokerage firms, or insurance companies.

2. Be Organized. This will take discipline, but you have to be more meticulous about your money. Start by monitoring your current expenses. From there, you can see which among your expenses are taking up your income. Allot a certain amount for each and every need, and make financial goals with whatever amount you can save. Try not to use debt like credit cards. Pay off your credit cards at the end of every month. Organization like this will allow you to start saving enough to get you out of your situation.

3. Be Focused. Managing finances can be difficult. Don’t worry about the people who call you names because you refuse to spend money on nonsense such as movies, parties, and social fads. You can encounter distractions, such as sales and other bargains, but you have to be focused on your goal. Just keep in mind that once you become more financially stable, you can then reward yourself with things you want to buy and vacations you want to take.

4. Be Prepared. It is recommended that you save at least three months worth of your expenses. Work and do your best to pool this amount, so that if anything happens, you will not be crippled financially. This may take some time to do. When the First Great Depression of the 21^st Century hit, I did not work for 2 years. When I did work over the next year, my wages were at times just above minimum wage. But because I prepared myself over the past 30 years, I could still send my children to college, buy them their first cars, give my son-in-law a car, and give my oldest daughter and husband their down payment on their first house. Even today, my wages are not as high as it was in the early 1990s. However, I owe no one and I am preparing to retire.

Darnell L Williams (holding money) started his lawn business at 10 years old. He taught himself to read the financial pages of the newspaper including the stock market by age 16. He employed two workers by age 18. He bought his first car by age 20. Darnell owned his first A1 current model car at age 21. He bought his first single family home in an exclusive suburb of Pittsburgh at age 24.

Darnell had his first child at age 33 and started her college education account. He bought his second house in a suburb of Harrisburg, Pa. at age 34. Darnell had his second child and started her college account at age 37. At age 50 the first child graduated from high school and started college. Darnell bought her an A1 current year car. At age 55, the second child graduated from high school and started college with her new car. Both cars were paid for in cash.

At the same time as the high school graduations, Darnell's working career went south along with the economy. I did not work for 2 years. The next year I worked for minimum wage. My pay did not pick up again until I was 56 years old. At age 57, my oldest daughter and family bought their first house and the remainder of the money that I saved for her when she was born made the down payment for that house. Then I started working on my retirement fund. From age 56 to age 61, my retirement account tripled. I will continue to finance my retirement until I am 63 or 64 years old. Now I am doing research to make sure that I have enough funds to last until I am 90 years old if need be.

5. Study Every Situation. As you learn how to manage your money, you will develop a more sensitive approach to handling money. You can then better decide on whether or not it is wise to spend on something. Just make sure that all your financial decisions are well thought of, and you can be on your way to being more independent with handling your money.

Darnell at age 2. In 6 years he will understand and start accumulating wealth for the first time. Here lies why his mother claimed that he was not from this world.

What you should remember at all times;

1. You start your lifetime plan or your children's plan as soon as you can after you are or they are born.

2. You work your lifetime plan or adjust your lifetime plan as needed in your lifetime.

3. Always stay focused on your lifetime plan.

Once You Retire, You Are So Screwed!

Once you retire, you are lucky to be on a fixed income. Some people are on no income. Some people think they are fine because they have a pension and Social Security. But when it comes time to retire, they find out that they are getting $500 per month on a Pension and $300 per month in Social Security. The shock, they still have to pay taxes.

The furnace breaks down, the air conditioner is out, the place needs to be upgraded, and the house keeps heat like a box with large holes in it. It starts to rain and you feel this "drip, drip, drip" from the upstairs bedroom light. Your car is over 12 years old and it runs when it feels like it. You are putting $1,000 per year in repairs on your car. To buy a new car, you must pay twice as much to get a car smaller than the one you have with less options. On top of all this, you owe over $2,000 in credit card bills.

You might have a house that was built before World War II. The house is paid for but the Utilities are running $392 per month. Your county, school, and municipal taxes are running $2,500 to $6,000 per year. You find out that you still need to make money to stay in your home.

At this point, you wish that you would have plan for all this 10 to 20 years ago while you had the money.

The dream couple making money from renting their home.

With this big house, you start thinking about becoming a landlord. After all, it is easy money. The tenants come in and they pay you on time. They may even help you around the house. Wake up old people, wake up!

The Retired Old Lady
The picture shows what a disgruntled tenant can do to your property. I have a friend who decided to rent out three rooms in her home of 20 years. She had no clue of what she was doing. She did not have them sign a lease. The tenants could travel freely through her home and garage. Most of her tenants fell behind on their rent.

She found that once that happened, it was a “bear” to collect the rent. She usually ended up losing one to two months’ rent including the cost of utilities. A two week old tennant move out. Two weeks later she found out she owed the electric company $251.61 for one months usage.

Her property was not always fully rented, leaving a gap in here income. After a while she found that she could not pay her living expenses and replace the damages that her renters made.

If that is all that happened to her then she should be happy. Recently, a tenant was living in her best room with a connecting bathroom. In the months that he was there, he destroyed her blinds at the windows and destroyed the drapes. He broke much of the furniture in the room. The tenant disconnected the cable to the other tenant’s rooms. The toilet no longer flushes because he clogged the toilet with rages. She had to call a plumber to fix the toilet and sink in the bathroom.

When she finally told him to leave, he gave her $50.00 and told her to have a nice day. I suspect that he got the money from selling many items in her house and was paying her rent from that money. She is still trying to put that room back in shape.

You say sue him! She can sue and she can win but collection of money from people who have none is a different story. Plus you paid court cost and lawyer's fees. Lawyers do not care who pays. You the victim paying is fine.

The upstairs bedroom tenant was not as bad. All he did was not pay the rent. We will not talk about the trash that he never took out. He just through his trash under the bed and into a closet. Instead of washing his clothing, he would buy clothing then once dirty, through them into a closet. He pushed a broken Motor Cycle into her yard and abandoned it there. It is her problem now. The Motor Cycle did not belong to him and she has to have permission in writting from the police to have a salvage company take it away. After the landlord was out 2 months’ rent, she spent several weeks putting that room back together and taking out a years’ worth of trash.

You think that is all that happened to her? The landlords water bill kept increasing. She went into the basement and found out that her furnace is leaking all over the floor. It cost $5,000 for a new furnace.

Like my friend here, you can have cash in the bank from rent receipts and you may look like you are doing fine. My friend was doing well for 20 years. She took trips using her rent money. She bought more junk than what she needed. But she never figured out her income and expenses. She never accounted for depreciation of her assets. In other words, she never learned a thing about managing her property. This is where most “landlord want to bees” go wrong.

Being a landlord is not as easy and financially rewarding as they make it sound on TV. As people found out in the past 10 years, property values go down as well as up. Being a landlord is work and you have to do an investigation of your prospective tenants. You must manage your property financially and by using good maintenance policies. If you are dispirit and let anyone in, you could end up like my friend or even put your life in harm’s way.

What should be done before bringing in Renters!

Things you should do before bringing in boarders.

1. Ask for proof of income such as two recent pay stubs and a copy of their credit report. If they can’t produce a pay stub or their credit report looks as if they do not pay creditors, you don’t need them. Call the previous landlord and asks about the tenant. You may want to get online and run a criminal background check.
http://criminalbackgroundcheck4u.net/

2. Create and have them sign a lease. Below is a copy of a sample lease.
http://www.totalrealestatesolutions.com/realestateforms/html/RentalContract.html

3. Ask for a Security Deposit to cover damages. Make sure that you have spelled out in the lease that you have the right to inspect the room on a bi-weekly or monthly base.

4. When they are moving out, go over an exit list with them. This will determine if they are going to get their Security Deposit back. Look at the sample below.

http://housing.ucsc.edu/cro/pdf/condition-checklist.pdf