Financial Honesty

Tonight's season finale of the Real Housewives of Atlanta showed castmate Cynthia Bailey wedding Peter amidst a serious lack of money and family doubt. I am someone that has previously blogged about my thoughts on weddings and their outrageous costs (here and here) so seeing her struggle to scrape together pennies to put on the wedding of her dreams was hard.

Viewers watched as Cynthia broke down multiple times leading up to her nuptials and proclaimed that they didn't even have the $3k to pay for the beverages, amongst other things. Now her mother came in for the last minute save, but I would love to ask them if it was really worth it? I'm not a party pooper - - If you have the $ to spend by all means spend it! I just don't believe in overextending yourself... not even for a wedding.

Financial honesty is a concept most of us learned when we were young, but recently financial guru Suze Orman has made popular again: "Financial honesty means you don't buy it if you don't have the money for it."

It's tempting to keep up with the Jones', but there's nothing wrong with being honest about your financial situation and knowing when to forgo certain things. A "budget" isn't a bad word and financial honesty won't ruin your day. As Orman always says, we should strive to "live below our means, but within our needs."

When is the last time you analyzed what your needs truly are? Do you know someone that went broke planning a wedding?

Savings 101

Recently I read a comment on twitter that stated if you were 30 years old and didn't have at least $1,000 in your savings acct you should kill yourself. Of course they weren't implying that you should literally die, but it got me thinking - - at the age of 26 how much $ should I have saved up for a rainy day?

The economy is still all over the place and as people try to just make it to next month, saving money isn't a priority. Never fear... I found some helpful advice in the way of financial guru Suze Orman. Starting to save doesn't have to be overwhelming. All you need is $500 and you'll be on your way.

Orman suggests starting off by keeping $400 in your savings acct as well as $100 in your checking. Easy enough. The logic behind this is that most car repairs won't cost you over $500 and as long as you keep at least $100 in your checking you'll always be able to cover everyday things that pop up. Yes, this is only the tip of the iceberg but everyone needs to start somewhere.

It's nice to know that no matter what life throws at you, you'll always have at least $500 to your name :)