Dr Copa

Sticking to a budget seems to be the biggest challenge that Americans face.  For a lot of us, we are used to spending more money than we make.  I’m no exception to that!  It has been so easy to just go out and spend money!  The mentality of spend now and pay later is an easy one to get into!  That’s why so many of us are now going to see debt counselors! 

But this tendency has always been a dangerous one, and with so many people having their hours at work cut back, or losing their jobs completely is going to make it even more difficult to manage our debts and stick to a budget.  Once we lose a job, in this economy, it is going to be tough to find a new one.  We will be competing with a lot of people for the few remaining jobs out there!  Darn few jobs are “safe” anymore!

So it is becoming vitally important to create a budget and stick to it.  We need to figure out a way to live within our means and stop thinking that we can have something NOW and pay for it LATER.  We need to go back to the mentality of “if we can’t afford to pay for it NOW, then we will have to WAIT until LATER when we CAN afford it!”

In order to force ourselves to stick to a budget, I think it is a good idea to use a Prepaid Mastercard.  You can get these in the form of a Prepaid Debit Card or a Prepaid Credit Card.  The good thing about one of these is that the card will not allow you to spend more money than you have on it, and you have already paid for it up front.