Do you have a savings plan for 2020?

Good financial habits start with an effort. Do you have $260.00 in your savings account (or in the box under your bed)? If not, do you have a plan to get there by the end of the year? If you saved $5.00 per week last year, you would have saved $260.00. If you saved $10.00 a week, you would have saved $520.00.

Taking control of your finances is a way of taking charge of your life. We MUST make financial decisions for our future, today. The goal is to have enough savings to cover your monthly bills for six months. More than three-fourths of Americans don’t have enough money saved to pay their bills for six months, according to survey results released by Bankrate. Half of the survey respondents said they had less than three months’ worth of expenses saved up, and more than one-quarter have no reserves to draw on in case of emergency. Have you prepared a budget to know how much money you spend/need each month? We spend a lot of money, but how much, do we need? I used to spend over $10.00 each week on Twizzlers. But last year during one of Western Wayne County NAACP meetings, Sonya Weaver, the Economic Sustainability Chairperson gave a talk on Saving.She encouraged us to write down every time we spent some money. There is was… Twizzlers on just about every purchase; at the gas station – I bought Twizzlers, at Family Dollar – I bought Twizzlers. So I stopped buying them. That was my answer…..$10.00/week for 40 weeks resulted in $400.00. Now what am I going to cut out this year? I am doing the 52 week challenge. That is when you save a dollar for each week of the year. Last week I saved a $1.00, this week I will save $2.00 and so on. By the end of the year, I will have saved $1,378.00.

Who wants to join me in the challenge? If you don’t want to do this, just start saving something. Set a plan and stick to it. Whether it is $10/week, $100.00/week or $1/week you have to take control of your finances today. It takes discipline and sacrifice. Make it a family project and have everyone in the house set up a plan. I will check back in at the end of the quarter (March) to see how you are doing?

Gina Wilson Steward

CEO/Publisher