Financial News
Change Your Attitude About Money in 10 Easy Steps
By Lynette Holloway
Special to the NNPA
from the New
Pittsburgh Courier
I
t’s no secret that African
Americans face unique
challenges to their finan-
cial security that are unlike
those of white households.
An estimated 42 percent of
African American house-
holds use credit for basic
expenses, such as rent, gro-
ceries
and
utilities,
according to The Challenge
education of youth in the
Tri-State New York area.
Lamb is author of Do I
Look Like An ATM? A Par-
ent’s Guide To Raising
Financially
Educated
African-American Children.
She suggests 10 ways to
make your money work for
you:
1. Examine your
“money-logue”
Review your inner dia-
logue about money: how
you think, believe and speak
Move the healthy and
empowering discussion of
personal finance front and
center in family life and make
it a goal-setting team activity
of Credit Card Debt for the
African American Middle
Class, a report released last
year by the NAACP. More-
over, 99 percent of blacks,
who started new businesses
using credit, are struggling
to pay off those expenses,
compared to just 80 percent
of whites, the report says.
The good news is that it’s
never too late to overhaul
your financial situation.
One of the first steps is
changing your attitude
toward money, according
to Sabrina Lamb, founder
and CEO of the Worldof-
Money.org, an organization
dedicated to the financial
3. Shop for quality
financial services
Instead of choosing finan-
cial institutions with the
best commercials, research
bankrate.com for the finan-
cial institutions that provide
the highest compound inter-
est rate for investments; or
the lowest mortgage rate.
4. Pay yourself first
Seriously.
Examine
whether you believe that
your life is worth saving and
that you alone have an
emergency fund for when
“life happens,” or you
encounter hardship. That
fund should cover at least 4
months’ worth of expenses.
5. Watch your credit
Your credit report should
be your bestseller. Review it
for errors, including names,
addresses, incorrect claims
and violations of statute of
limitations. The government
makes a free report available
at annualcreditreport.com.
6. Monitor your social
media reputation
Examine your online rep-
utation. People of color are
already targeted by toxic
sub-prime loans, high inter-
est rates and sub-par
financial services. Social
media conversations and
posts provide financial
institutions with a treasure
trove of information to
determine a person’s credit
worthiness.
7. Invest in what
you know
Clueless as to which stock
or mutual fund to own?
Look around your home and
list the products and servic-
es of publicly traded
companies to which you are
already loyal. Use low-cost
sites
such
as
sharebuilder.com that allow
you to invest in companies
with a modest investment.
8. Just say, “no.”
Cash is king
In exchange for a dis-
count, companies try to
recruit new customers with
“point-of-sale” high inter-
est, high late fee credit
cards. Just say no. One debit
card is all one needs. “If you
don’t have the cash, don’t
buy it.”
9. Sight unseen:
Direct deposit
Open a direct deposit CD
or IRA account, which pro-
vide higher interest rates
than traditional savings
accounts. Determine that a
percentage of your income
is automatically withdrawn.
10. Start now
Money attracts money.
Your path to financial liber-
ation may seem lonely at
first, especially if family
and friends choose not to
join you. Avoid having a
money-logue only when
experiencing an emergency
or if it’s New Year’s Eve.
Becoming
financially
secure and financially edu-
cated is the only way that
your money can grow.
about it to yourself. Elimi-
nate words that reflect lack
or loss. Examine if your
financial behaviors lean
toward asset or liability
accumulation and make a
change. Use your current
financial situation as a path-
way to prosperity to help
overcome shame and regret.
2. Make “saving”
culturally cool
Examine your family’s
culture as it relates to
money management. Move
the healthy and empowering
discussion of personal
finance front and center in
family life and make it a
goal-setting team activity.
why Track Spending?
By Jenna Knobloch on behalf of Innovative
Changes, www.innovativechanges.org
H
ow much exactly should you budget for food
every month? How about gas for your car?
Tracking your spending is to budgeting like a
measuring cup is to cooking. Without it, you’ll have a
harder time making everything come out right. Further-
more, when you aren’t tracking your spending, it is easy
to forget those small purchases that really add up. If you
are a smoker, how many packs do you buy? What about
coffee and energy drinks? Not including these in your
budget can leave you short by the end of the month.
Ways to Track Spending
Luckily, in our modern era there are a variety of
options for keeping track of your spending.
The most basic and old-fashioned of all: write it
down. Carry a small notebook or piece of paper and
write down everything you buy and how much you
spent. Then when you are budgeting, you can add up
how much you actually spent in each category and use
that to estimate costs for the next month.
If you don’t want to be constantly carrying a pen
around, save your receipts! You can keep them in your
wallet and then put them in a safe place so that you can
have a record of everything you’ve bought when it’s
time for budgeting.
Do you like to use your debit card for most of your
transactions instead of cash? Check out Mint.com. It is
a secure site that links with your bank accounts and
measures how much you spend for you! They even
make charts and graphs for you to visualize your spend-
ing patterns.
Continuing to Track Spending
Continuing to track your spending is not only a great
way to keep your budget up to date, but a way to remind
yourself how much you have to spend for the month. It
can take trial and error to see what works for you, but
you’ll be amazed how much easier budgeting is when
you know where your money is going.
October 8, 2014 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 7