Paige Power

  The benefits of living debt free. Did you know that 23% of Americans live debt free? That is all debt, mortgage, credit card, car loans, student debt, and personal loans. I’m impressed with this number. I often find statistics about the challenge Americans have managing their money and it’s a little depressing, but I like this statistic. Being debt free is the single most impactful financial goal you can achieve that will offer a tangible results on many areas of your life. Personal fortitude For example the process of becoming debt free requires a significant amount of personal fortitude. When you work towards the goal of debt free living you’ll have to set aside minor comforts in order to achieve your goal. That will teach you to be more mindful in your approach to purchases. You will become more mindful of the individuals around you and their values. You’ll learn to live lean, find fun with creativity and value experiences over stuff. That’s massive change for most of us...

  Recently I was watching a money guru on YouTube speak about what he would do if he wanted financial stability in 2023. He had many interesting things to say, primarily that you should always have your money working for you. I agree that investments to help your money grow should be a big part of everyone’s financial plan. He said that people who focus on tightening their budget are going about personal finance all wrong. I disagree with this sentiment. If you are a person who can increase your earning power to the point you can live off your investments - fantastic. However if you are part of the rest of us who are barely numerate, budgeting can be a way to gain financial stability if you don’t have the wherewithal that the millionaire class has. Not all of us will be able to identify opportunity in the stock market. If we could there would be no issue of poverty, everyone with a buck would be investing and earning. Only one in three Americans say they are financially secure...

  Trading one vice for another can be a tool to achieve frugal living. When I speak of vice I’m not speaking about alcohol, or use of pornography or drug use, I’m writing about more pedestrian forms of pleasure. Entertainment is a form of pleasure that many of us are willing to part with our hard earned dollars to partake in. We are accustomed to having constant input so boredom is always lurking in the shadows waiting to assail us with peace and quiet. Recently I was chatting with a friend of mine. He mentioned that he was investigating a new streaming service because he couldn’t find anything good to watch, and he’d heard good things about the service he was looking into. It was affordable, certainly less than the other services he is subscribed to. Naturally, I encouraged him to drop all his subscriptions and find other ways to keep entertained. I understand that this is not a popular opinion, but hear me out. There was a time when none of us had subscriptions. What did we d...

  Did you grow up in an era when people borrowed an egg from their neighbor? There was a time when we lived in neighborhoods and we knew our neighbors. Today we are a society of people who know little about each other. Up to one in six people report not knowing any of their neighbor’s names. Who cares? You should care; neighbors can be a great source of social interaction. Neighbors can also be weird and you should know that as well. Don’t be that person on the news saying, “He kept to himself.” What drives this isolation? We get social credibility differently than we used to. In times past we hoped the people next door liked us and that we liked them, that our kids would play together, and that if we needed a little help, they would show up with shovels for our snowy pathway. In return, we would welcome them in on a wintery day when their heater went out. Don’t get me wrong I’m not lamenting how things used to be when I was a young woman, things are much better now. But w...