Most Common Money Mistakes to Stop Making Now

Money mistakes are pretty common. Whether you spend too much of it and make not quite so much of it, whether you are too cheap and have no fun with it or whether you’ve made some mistakes and you’re looking to correct those, you’re probably making money mistakes. Since it’s not quite far enough into the year for you to have failed miserably at making your New Year’s resolutions come true – yet – we thought we’d help you out by sharing some of the biggest money mistakes you’re making so that you can hurry up and quit.

Not Knowing Your Net Salary

When someone asks you how much you make every year, do you just say, “$150k” since that’s what shows up on your W2 every year? That might be what you gross, but you net far less than that. By the time retirement savings, insurance costs, taxes and other money is removed from your paycheck every week or other week or whatever, you make a lot less than that. You need to know this since this plays a huge factor in what you can actually afford.

Not Knowing Your Net Worth

It’s nice to be debt-free and to have a nice savings account, but do you know your net worth? It’s the difference between your assets and your liabilities. For most people, it’s in the negatives. For others it’s not. Either way, you want this number to be as high as possible, even though you never really thought of it.

Where You Really Spend Your Money

Here’s a personal example; I spend anywhere from $300 to $700 per week at the grocery store for my family of 6. Now, let’s be honest here. I have one kid that barely likes food at all and will eat carrots, pasta and goldfish all day, every day. I have another who eats anything we eat (she really loves vegetables and salmon) and 1-year-old twins who eat anything, but so very little of it that it doesn’t even count yet.

I also feed my aunt/sister (she’s close to my age and we were raised together) and her 3-year-old son every night since they show up for dinner. That means I apparently have a family of 8. It costs me about $75 per week to buy the food that my kids take in their lunches to school and the rest goes to coffee, diapers, wine and meat. I’m not even kidding. It’s ridiculous. So while I knew that amount of money was going to groceries, I didn’t realize it was going to more than $200 worth of wine every week (because it doesn’t feel like we drink that much with one or two glasses a night; we forget about our guest) – and food for 8.

You have to know where your money is going so you know where you can make it stop. It’s helpful; I promise.

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