The single most important personal finance advice
by Andrew on 09/06/08 at 4:59 pm
8 comments
Seth Godin nailed it on the head with his personal finance advice today:
If I could only share one piece of personal finance advice to grads or to just about anyone, it would be this:
Only borrow money to pay for things that increase in value.
It’s a short list: your business, your house and your education, mostly. Stocks if you’re smarter than me. That’s pretty much it.
Read the full article here.
On Thursday Tito is going to increase our interest rates by another 1-2%, and most of us are going to suffer… a lot. If you had followed Seth’s advice a few years back and only had debt for your house and business, would you be sleeping a bit better?
Andrew Smith is the pedantic systems guy behind Live Alchemy, a SA e-commerce company. Andrew writes for Ideate in an attempt to make the world a more efficient place. View more articles by Andrew.
finance and loan blog -
Jun 9th, 2008
[...] The single most important personal <b>finance</b> advice [...]
James Maarsden
Jun 9th, 2008
Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor dad) also shares a similar philosophy of only investing in assests that grow.
Devin
Jun 9th, 2008
Very smart advice.
How come you don’t have a promotion on for Fathers Day @ Yuppie Chef?
Andrew
Jun 10th, 2008
@Devin check out the Father’s Day suggestions here: Father’s Day.
Devin
Jun 10th, 2008
Cool.
I was just expecting a splash on the front page. Yuppie Chef rocks by the way love the design.
Personal Loans Company
Jun 11th, 2008
You know. That is an awesome saying and I’m going to put it on my site.
We do personal loans and personal financing for alot of people and I can tell you now that we probably decline in the region of 200 to 300 applicants a week.
Ours reason for decline are not because we think they can’t afford it or because they don’t earn enough cash but because they’re using these personal loans for the wrong reasons.
South Africans need to start learning how to save!!!
I love it – Only borrow money to pay for things that increase in value. SO SO TRUE!
Brad
Jun 24th, 2008
Andrew,
BRILLIANT Advice, thanks for being a fantastic servant of the little people.
Did your readers know that business partners can assure each others lives? They can do so, in order to ensure that lawyers and advocates don’t milk them of their investment values should the business partner become disabled, or worse, pass away.
If you have a business asset that is worth lending for, make sure you have it properly assured.
If you or your readers have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
By the WAY!!!! Congrats on the award yuppiechef won!
Brad.
Barefoot Billionaire
Aug 7th, 2008
I think it’s great to be able to cope with the lean years as well (like most of us have to right now). But maybe it needn’t be as super skinny as Seth suggests.
And maybe we need to make a little bit more effort to still feel like we have abundance, but on a much smaller budget. Like getting a trainee to cut and colour your hair (for almost free at Terenzo Hairdressing School). And starting meeting clients and suppliers over good coffee (thanks Fred for your great coffee blog) instead of lunch. Or getting a tailor to adjust some of your business clothes that need a more updated look rather than buying new ones.
Looking good, feeling confident and keeping in touch with the finer things in life can all be ‘investments’ in growing your business. But let’s be more creative about stretching the budget!
PS: For more money-saving tips, have a look at http://www.morethanmoney.co.za