Despite Amazon’s best efforts to delay our Christmas festivities, one of the presents I received was a copy of Jim Cramer‘s “Stay May For Life
I’ve decided to share some of the highlights of his book as I read through it.
In chapter two, he mentions three important things:
- Create a budget for daily, monthly, and annual expenses.
Okay, so far, I’m with him on this. Although I’ve rarely budgeted my personal expenses, putting together a budget is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now, so this seems as good an excuse as any. - Carry health insurance.
This is also a timely piece of advice. Given that we are seeing another double-digit (18%) increase in health insurance premiums this year, I asked my wife to investigate alternatives such as self-funding insurance or a health savings account. Unfortunately, it appears that the best course of action is to pay somewhere around $800/mo. for health insurance, with a $10,000 deductible. Crisis? Maybe. Ridiculous? Definitely. - Carry no balances on credit cards.
This one’s a no-brainer for me. I can remember once in my life when I carried balances on a credit card intentionally, and that was to get me into college when I showed up to find that financial aid hadn’t come through as planned. I paid them off within a year, but other than that, I am well aware that carrying 20%+ interest rates for a short-term cash loan is insane. If you need short-term loans, seek out your local credit union. I know, (from experience, as I’m a member of my local credit union‘s board of directors) that they are there to help you.
Assuming the book continues to hold my attention, I’ll post updates as I read through it.