Any time Is A Good Time To Make Financial Resolutions

The New Year often brings with it a desire to right wrongs in your life. From this desire springs tradition of New Year resolutions. You should take advantage of this to change your financial situation.

There is a good chance by time many of you read this, you will have already made and BROKEN your financial resolutions. Those of you who have not already done so, know they are hard to keep. You can change that. You can make financial resolutions any time of year.

Since you are thinking about this, you must suspect a problem. The first step is defining problem. Define it specifically. "I spend too much money", is not good enough. You spend too much money on what? Why do you spend too much money? It is not often you are speaking of life's necessities here. You need to specifically target your problem areas.

The best way to identify problem areas in your spending, is to pull out your check registers and credit card statements for past twelve months. Write down all checks and charges for items other than necessities. This spending will be your gold to mine.

After making this list, add up total amount of these expenses. This will be a very revealing exercise. For some total will be staggering, especially when done for a twelve month period.

Haggling: Give Yourself A Raise

• Be in command. Feel comfortable in negotiation process. This will take practice. Start in an arena where haggling is a common and accepted practice. Go to a flea market or swap meet. Have some fun learning to haggle with people you find there. After you have honed your skill you can have confidence as you move to haggling where practice is less common.
• Never be satisfied with price marked. You are looking for a compromise. Any compromise leaves money in your pocket. A decent haggler can increase his purchasing power by 10-20%. That is like getting a 15-25% raise in your pay.
• Always negotiate up. Choose a low price to begin with. You do not start at price you are willing to pay. If you do, once you mention a price you are done. Start with a low, even ridiculous, amount. (This can be most difficult part, but forget embarrassment. Your goal and only goal is to get them engaged.)
• As you haggle make your increases in price small. You never know when he or she will accept. There is no sense in placing money on table you could have left in your pocket.
• Never give up. Keep at it. Be sure to go into negotiation fresh. Don’t fool yourself by thinking you are first person to match wits with this seller and so he has no experience. You must not even give a hint you are weakening. A good seller can smell reticence.