Have power of endurance?

Everywhere around you, people decry their persistent lack of money. Many are seeking financial break through in hope.

Yet there is so much money around, but we do not seem to see it.

This persistent interplay of scarcity and an environment of abundance leaves me wondering whether money is really the problem.

Many cannot see money that they are not skilled to produce let alone managing it.

Far too many people in the world today overvalue talent and celebrity, and they sure have their good reasons.

However, my own account for this is no more than the money they are perceived to procure by their status. Will they keep it?

When successful people like the Facebook ace, Mark Zuckerberg or Lionel Messi getthe recognition they deserve, often what is not recognised is the hours, days, weeks and sometimes years of extremely hard work, dedication, and persistence that got them to the point of recognition.

There are two issues interplaying in this —a simple feasible idea and persistence.

A simple idea that can be turned into cash flow, and the persistence to learn and to master how to turn the first cash flow into more streams.

My humble financial literacy coach, told me, that money is an idea, take yours and turn it into cash flow.

It will take time and dedication to horn the skills for making and keeping money.

Persistence may not be glamorous, but it sure gets the job done!

Think of every super-talented successful person, like Michael Jackson, Will Smith and even our own Ndambuki aka Mwalimu Kinga’ngi whoever strikes a chord with you.

These guys have put plenty of time doing their thing, but first they chose the idea.

They clearly discerned a need in the society and did not let fear of failure take control of them.

In fact fear to fail made Michael Jackson work unusually hard at getting his skills right.

Newt Gingrich once defined persistence as “the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.”

A good idea alone is not good enough. It is not going to happen by some kind of magic, it is going to take effort, training and practice no matter how talented we are.

Yet most people around are looking for this elusive money, where they won’t find it.

It is the bias for taking action, not talent that separates successful people from failures.

Success is nothing more than a little effort repeated and improved everyday.

Many people give up when they are so close to achieving success.

Many such people are sad and frustrated, because they have given up on themselves and their dreams.

If only they understood the power of persistence, they would learn the refining power that translates dreams into reality!

Mastering money comes from mastering an idea through time.

The person who has what it takes to be persistent is the person who really wants to take action and always finds a way, where others find excuses.

It is human nature to look for excuses to justify failure, rather than dig deep when times are tough and do what you have got to do to get what you really want.

Excuses never got the job done.

When you are financially literate you have the ability to use knowledge, skill and confidence to make responsible financial decision.

Financial literacy is vitally important in the information age, a time of lightning-quick change, fewer guarantees, and more opportunities.

Time and chance present many opportunities in this era, but only the people who have the persisted and mastered their money ideas are ready to exploit them.

The power is in your hands. It is up to you to decide whether you won’t have enough or you will have too much.

The book of proverbs reminds us to go to the ant, observe its way and be wise.

This little animal knows something about producing and saving for the future.

To be successful, alter self-sabotaging behaviours

The road to success is filled with obstacles.

Finding your way around them predicts winning and losing.

Some of the obstacles show up in the form of survival behaviours brought on by the brain’s innate wiring to protect us from the dangers of the world.

The only thing is, the dangers have changed from 200,000 years ago when the wiring evolved, and we have to find a way around it or suffer the consequences of what is called “danger surfing.”

In a previous column, I’ve discussed the concept of danger surfing, wherein the brain surfs the horizon for threats and helps us react properly in order to survive.

Danger surfing often leads to behaviours that can be harmful to achieving your goals.

It’s helpful if you know when you, your colleagues, competitors or clients are danger surfing so you can override it or use it to your own benefit.

The brain is organised primarily to maximise reward and minimise danger, and our behaviours are moulded by these two things.

The danger receptors in our brain are more active than the reward receptors, as we spend a good deal of time danger surfing.

In short, danger surfing sometimes shows up as childish behaviour. There are five basic ways we danger surf.

Recognising them before or as they are happening can help you take steps to avoid them in yourself and others, as well as taking the edge off their damaging effects.

The acronym we’ll use is C.H.A.S.E.

C = Choice. Our brains like choices. Autonomy is one of the things we look for as humans.

If something is presented as an ultimatum, then you can expect stubborn, childish pushback.

Also, if you give a person one choice, you have a 50/50 chance of a “no.” However, when you offer choices, the likelihood of one of the options being chosen goes up tremendously.

Choice Tip: The magic number seems to be three choices. Influence psychology tells us that when you give people options, start with the luxury model first, then midline, then economy. More times than not, the midline will be chosen. But when you start with the economy choice, people tend to split between economy and midline. Make sure all options are ones you can live with if chosen.

H = Hierarchy. Our brain pays a lot of attention to pecking order or status. You see it in a roomful of people when the boss’s boss walks in.

Everyone becomes more polite and less forthcoming. On a one-on-one basis, you can tell when someone feels like their status has been questioned.

It typically happens when you offer advice, make criticisms or give “feedback.” Defensive-toned retorts like “I already knew that,” “I’ve tried that already; it didn’t work,” or a putdown like “What’s your point?” are clues that the other person is danger surfing and is going to shut down. Until they feel their status is restored, the conversation won’t move forward.

Hierarchy Tip: People get into status battles when they feel like others are commenting on the quality of their work or their competence.

Something as innocent as offering someone advice can be seen as a status change because we’re in the driver’s seat as the advisor.

Ask before dispensing advice to ease the danger surfing defensiveness that comes when status is shifted without permission.

A simple “May I give you some thoughts about how I’d approach it?” goes a long way. Another quick tip is that when you go into a meeting, figure out the roles everyone thinks they are playing.

Are they the leader, a participant, a listener, encourager, feedback giver?

If someone else thinks they are the leader of the meeting and you wrestle control from them, essentially becoming the leader, you have a status battle.

Sense of safety

A = Assurance. When things feel uncertain, the brain goes into survival mode, and we begin to think and behave in ways that make us feel safer. In times of uncertainty, you won’t see a lot of extraordinary thinking going on. In fact, people tend to do what they know is a sure thing. That’s why when things at work feel very uncertain because of a merger, acquisition or layoffs, people vigorously protect their turf.

Assurance Tip: When things are shaky, over-communicate the things you know are certain.

Give people a sense of safety so they don’t danger surf too much and fall into auto-pilot, uncreative thinking. If you feel unsure yourself, organise a drawer or your office. The sense of knowing where things are brings down the anxiety from uncertainty.

S = Social. We are a tribal species. Before we established our dominance and lived in caves, we had to take care of each other in order to keep our species around. If you were exiled from the clan, you died.

It still feels the same way when we aren’t included in a group we want to be in.

The next time someone holds a meeting you believe you should have attended, take notice of how you feel about it—probably snubbed.

Dr. Naomi Eisenberger studied inclusion and exclusion at UCLA and found that emotional pain switches on the same part of the brain as physical pain. It hurts to be left out.

When we’re hurt, we don’t communicate as much or as well. We withhold important information, get angry or become agitated and don’t perform as well.

Social Tip: The social realm is dictated by the rules of the group. Have a departmental meeting about the rules the team should live by.

Everything from what’s acceptable dress to how tardy you can be to meetings to expectations about how people behave after hours are all about understanding the social makeup of a team.

The more everyone understands the rules, the less confusion and hurt will result from being treated as an exiled clan member.

E = Equitability. When things feel equitable or fair, the reward part of the brain turns on. Conversely, danger surfing occurs when something doesn’t feel fair.

If you offer someone a proposal with something that feels unfair, they will scan the rest of the proposal more stringently for inequitable items and begin inspecting the relationship for other things that might violate a sense of fairness.

When something feels unfair, we might not always be able to put our finger on it, but our behaviour becomes more cautious and cynical until we pinpoint the inequality and make it right.

Equitability Tip: To discover someone’s definition of fairness on certain issues, simply ask what feels fair to them.

If you’re selling a product or idea and someone asks a lot of questions about one topic, they could be trying to get fairness clarification. Check to see if the issue in question is out of balance in your favour, no matter how trivial you might think it is.

Danger or reward? It’s up to you and your brain.

Mr Halford is the author of ‘Be a Shortcut: The Secret Fast Track to Business Success.’

Stop Acting, Start Getting

The neighborhood you choose can have a powerful impact on how rich you become and how wealthy your children will be.

But the link between where you live and how much you're worth may be different than you expect.

So says wealth myth buster Thomas J. Stanley in his new book, "Stop Acting Rich ... and Start Living Like a Real Millionaire." Stanley is on a mission to change how Americans view money, starting with the blockbuster he co-authored in 1996, "The Millionaire Next Door."

Too many Americans are what Stanley calls "aspirational spenders" — people who spend money to make themselves look richer or more successful than they are.

But their "hyperconsumption" effectively torpedoes any chances they would have at accumulating real wealth, which typically requires spending significantly less than you earn and investing the difference.

In his latest survey of millionaire and nonmillionaire households, Stanley ranked more than 200,000 U.S. neighborhoods for wealth, then followed up by surveying select households, more than half of which were millionaires, which Stanley defines as having $1 million in investments, excluding their homes.

Here's what Stanley found:

The neighborhood in which we live influences a lot of our spending. The more expensive the house, the bigger the mortgage tends to be, and the more we'll spend on heating, cooling, insuring and maintaining the place.

But we also feel pressure to match our neighbors' spending on cars, vacations, furnishings and other trappings.

The "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality means the fancier the neighborhood, the less wealth we may accumulate, Stanley said. The opposite is also true: When our surroundings are more modest, we tend to spend less, regardless of our incomes.

"The propensity to spend," Stanley said, "is directly related to the typical home price in that neighborhood and to the price you paid for the house."

Interestingly, most of the people Stanley surveyed who lived in $1 million-plus homes weren't millionaires.

"They may have a big mortgage," Stanley said. "They don't have a lot of money."

In fact, Stanley found that three times as many millionaires live in homes worth $300,000 or less than live in homes worth $1 million or more.

"People who have a tendency to accumulate wealth live in neighborhoods that are easy to live in," Stanley said. "That's a hallmark of an accumulator."

Whom you hang out with matters. The ideal neighborhood, Stanley said, would be populated with engineers and teachers, two professions he found were associated with higher-than-expected levels of wealth accumulation.

Educators were especially good at turning sometimes below-average incomes into above-average wealth, something Stanley — a university professor for 20 years — credited to the culture in which they work. Frugality and saving for the future are valued in many teaching settings, he said, and that culture can have a profound effect.

"Work with frugal people, and you may become frugal," he writes. "Associate with colleagues who are astute investors, and you may become wealthy one day."

Our neighborhoods influence our kids' future wealth accumulation, too. Stanley asked his survey respondents a simple question: Growing up, were they better off or worse off financially than most of their neighbors?

People who perceived their childhood family's income as below the average for their neighborhood tended to become aspirational spenders and below-average wealth accumulators, Stanley said. They spent more to compensate for childhood feelings of somehow being "less than" their neighbors.

"They said things like, 'I went to high school with kids who had a lot more money,'" Stanley said. "They're making up for that scar."

By contrast, those who felt their families were in the upper half of their neighborhood's wealth hierarchy were more likely to be accumulators, rather than spenders.

"They're not looking for ways to consume to make up for the past," Stanley said.

Most millionaires have just one house. Many people associate a second or vacation home with having arrived. In Stanley's surveys, though, 64 percent of millionaires had never owned a second home. The net worth of second-home buyers at the height of the real-estate boom was actually considerably lower: a median of about $380,000, Stanley estimated.

Houses cost a lot to run and maintain. Stanley postulates that money-savvy millionaires find one home to be enough and prefer not to pour money into a property they may not use often — or might feel pressured to use more often than they want to.

A mere recession won't change Americans' spending habits. Actually, this wasn't a survey finding but is Stanley's own assessment of the long-term impact of the Great Recession on our likelihood of accumulating wealth.

Yes, people have cut back their spending because of job losses, less access to credit and the desire to build up savings, Stanley said. But that cutback is likely to be reversed as the economy improves, he said.

"It's not going to change the fabric of people," Stanley said. "Our whole (economic) structure is based on hyperconsumption."

Passion an essential building block for success

I’m a big believer in following your passions, wherever they might take you. Part of doing that is preparation – saving money, making choices that pave the way – but another part is simply stepping up to the plate and hitting that fat fastball down the middle of the plate when it comes your way.

Gary Vaynerchuk is passionate about wine. He’s one of the best known wine evangelists in the world because he wears it and shares it. He built a $60 million business in the wine industry mostly on the back of sharing his enthusiasm about wine online. Crush It! tells the story about Gary’s experience in translating his passion into a real business.

Gary’s story and advice rings really true because, in many places, it’s a journey I took myself. I did wind up in an area without the mainstream appeal of Gary’s area (sorry, folks, but there aren’t as many frugal people as there are wine fanatics) but most of the elements are strikingly similar.

His conclusions are spot-on, too – but we’ll get to that later.

In the first Chapter the writers tells us that Passion Is Everything. He says, it’s incredibly hard to be successful at something without being passionate at it. Why? Success takes time – a lot of it – and that early time is often filled with a tonne of failure. If you don’t have that true seed of passion that will help you get through those early trials and tribulations, you’ll never make it through. Passion keeps you going even in the face of repeated failure, and it’s only through repeated failure that you build the skillset necessary for success. I agree from experience – I failed as a writer for at least ten years before finding any sort of success with the written word. Without passion for writing, I would have given up and started playing World of Warcraft.

The second thing he says is that Success Is in Your DNA. Think about it. Every single person is unique and brings a unique perspective and set of talents to the table. That unique mix is something that is valued by others if you go through the process of mining it and isolating exactly what you have that’s valuable. It’s a long process, one that’s going to include a lot of failure along the way.

The other one is the branding aspect. What do people think of when they think of you? The stronger you can make that theme, the better off you are. Why? Because if you’re able to conjure up something when people think of you, they’ll already have a strong preconceived notion when they see your name pop up in other places. You’ll be familiar – and if you’ve built a positive (or at least an interesting) brand, you’ll turn something ho-hum into something people want to engage with. This might mean books, products you make, speaking engagements, and countless other things.

Remember that as the costs for starting your own business get lower and lower, it becomes less and less of a sensible proposition for talented and intelligent people to work for other people when they could be using that talent and intelligence to build a business for themselves and collect the rewards from their efforts. The Simple Dollar was started on a shoestring with little more than my spare time invested in it, for example. I could have just signed on to write or produce content for another site – but if I had done that, I would have made much less and had much less control over what happened with my stuff. If you’re passionate, don’t sell that passion to others – ride it yourself.

The secret is to create great content. If you’re not making things that other people want to read or listen to or watch or interact with, no one will pay any attention to you. The keys are straightforward: know what you’re talking about, be excited and passionate about it, and tell a story as you go. Those things work in any medium about any topic that you might be covering.

Also you need to choose your platform. “If you build it, they will come” isn’t true. You have to make sure people know you’re there and are aware of what you’re talking about. Thus, to get started, you have to go where the people are – places like Twitter and Facebook. Go there before you even have a product and join in the conversation. Follow others who are interested in the things you are and converse with them. Ask questions. Say astute things. Get involved in topics of conversation. Eventually, you’ll start accruing followers yourself – and you can start building from there in whatever direction you want. The key thing is that your followers – the people interested in what you have to say – are your platform.

Community building largely revolves around interacting with people, engaging in discussions, answering questions, asking questions, and being involved. You create community when you listen to what people say, focus on topics that people want to hear about, involve yourself in conversations, and so on. Each time you connect with a person, that person becomes part of your internet community. The larger that community is, the more powerful of a support platform it becomes for whatever you choose to do.

Lastly, Once you do decide to start making money (after you have a nice audience, of course), there’s a lot of potential avenues for income – advertisements, affiliate programmes, speaking engagements, consulting, freelance work, writing a book, and on and on and on. All of that (except for perhaps the direct ads) builds on top of establishing a community of followers who are interested in what you have to say. In the end, remember that a lasting legacy is much more valuable than money in hand right now.

Source of income

Don’t sell yourself out for something that you don’t believe in. If you do that and maintain honesty with the people who follow you, they’ll respect and value you far more than if you’re into every money-making opportunity that comes along. If you’ve ever thought you could do what I do, Crush It! is pretty much an essential read.

It outlines quite a lot of the process involved in translating a personal passion into an online-led endeavor that can be your primary source of income. It matches up very well with my own experience in doing much the same thing.

The real key behind it, though, is passion. You need to have a passion before you even start or else the book won’t ever take off for you. If you have a passion and want to share it with others and grow it into something that can financially sustain you, that’s where this book takes over.

-THE SIMPLE DOLLAR

You're bored and Tired of what you do!

You're bored. Tired of what you do. You're not even close to where you hoped your business would be by now. You feel like you're losing ground and don't know how to get energized and ready for the next round.

It happens to nearly everyone. Even though we know it takes most people two to four years to get a business off the ground and making money, we somehow believe we will be the exception to the rule. Or we just forget how long two to four years actually is. It doesn't help that every time we turn on the news, echoes of the declining economy ring in our ears.

Plenty of people are thriving, even in this economy, and you can, too. More important, you can regain your passion for what you do. Follow some of these suggestions to boost your flagging enthusiasm:

1. Become an industry insider. Take the next step to becoming savvier about what's going on in your field. Buy a subscription to that industry magazine you considered a luxury. Become a presenter or simply attend a conference you've always wanted to go to. You can always become more involved, whether it's helping at a local event, writing articles for publication or lobbying for a cause your industry cares about.
   
2. Sharpen your skills. You may be good at what you do. But someone else in your field knows more than you do, has more skills than you do or has that extra edge. Nothing chases away a slump faster than learning something new. Government agencies, businesses and schools all offer tons of e-learning opportunities at low cost. Look for training sessions at local universities or interest groups.
   
3. Find a mentor. One of the best ways to insulate yourself against business failure is to find and work with a mentor, someone with business experience who can guide and assist you. One place to begin is findamentor.org, a free website with a database of mentors and apprentices--a safe community where people can find support for achieving their desires. Find the right people to give you advice at the right stages in your career, be it one person or 20. Nothing is better than having a go-to person with whom to discuss your business ideas and concerns.
   
4. Grow your network. You know you need a professional network of people to help you open doors, get you in someone's office or help you close a deal. But there are other advantages, too. When you find the right group of people and you click, it can be fun. Group events, socializing one-on-one and even commiserating about similar situations and feelings can remind you that you aren't alone and that a new day is just around the corner.
   
5. Dealing with naysayers. Most of us deal with some clients or customers we can't seem to please, no matter what we do. Take their comments in stride and see if what they are saying is honest. If it is, take measures to improve your business. If it's not, focus on the positive testimonials you have gotten. Remind yourself how many people you are helping. Keep a folder of those positive comments and revisit them often. Better yet, add those testimonials to your website. They're great for attracting new clients and are a real mood booster when you're having "one of those days."

Build a Brand Unusual

Successful brand leaders live out loud. They follow their passions and they're willing to take risks regardless of what others say. To live out loud means to do whatever it takes to see your dreams realized.

Richard Branson, best known for his Virgin brand of over 360 companies, is the quintessential example of a brand unusual due to the leader's willingness to live out loud. Just look at the twinkle in Branson's eye: He is constantly forging new business pathways with a spirited and adventurous relentlessness.

Or take a look at the creators of Twitter: Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey. People originally scoffed at the notion of 140 character "tweets" but their idea has produced a totally original communication platform that's been embraced worldwide. And that originality is a corner-stone of the Twitter brand.

So what happens when a leader is living out loud? You get a brand unusual. When a company has a brand unusual the primary focus of the brand isn't outward (outsmarting the competition); instead it's internal. It's about the brand doing the best it can and recognizing the value it brings to the table, all the while inspiring others along the way and making a difference.

Here are two ways you can start forging your brand unusual.

Set a Higher Standard and Then Live By It
What used to be an afterthought in business practice, operating within the parameters of social responsibility, is now coming of age. This is essential thinking for entrepreneurs and for future business leaders.

At last year's Harvard Business School graduation, more than half of the students volunteered to take a new student-authored MBA Oath. The MBA Oath promises that Harvard MBA's will act responsibly, ethically and refrain from advancing their "own narrow ambitions" at the expense of others.
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How amazing is that? The so-called elite saying greed is no good and demonstrating a passion for spreading their new message.

Since that time more than 200 business schools around the world have added the MBA Oath to their commencement.

One of the three creators of the Oath, Teal Carlock, said, "As a class, we have a real opportunity to come together and set a standard as business leaders."

What you can do

• Challenge yourself and your team to set higher standards by using your brand to define how you want to operate in today's socially conscious business world. It could mean re-evaluating your vision for the future or the way you want to serve your customers. You want to send a clear and powerful message about the positive impact your business brand is having and will continue to have in the future.
  
• What kind of stage have you created for your brand? Visionary leaders create a platform for themselves and their brand. Are your brand story and marketing messages in synch with and supportive of whatever your platform says?

Ask and Answer Your 'Whys'
Marketing expert Simon Sinek is challenging the status quo and inspiring others to make a difference in this world. Sinek's recent book, Start With Why, studied those leaders who have had the greatest influence in the world. He discovered that they all think, act and communicate in very similar ways--the complete opposite of everyone else, that is. These leaders articulate and understand why their organization exists, and why it does the things it does. What's more, these great leaders never try to manipulate or control. They strive to inspire.

"Start seeing things from this different perspective of asking why," Sinek suggests. "Great companies with a strong sense of why are able to inspire their people. Great leaders give their people a purpose or challenge around which to develop ideas."

What you can do

• Start by asking yourself the question, "Why?" Why does my organization exist, why does it behave a certain way? This is a transformative process of discovery. Try it, and then invite your team to do the same. Once you've tapped into the reasons, apply the discoveries to your brand. Does your brand reflect these motivations? If it doesn't it's time to align your brand with your 'whys.'

In 1921, George Bernard Shaw wrote, "You see things, and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were, and I say; 'Why not?'" I challenge all you maverick entrepreneurs to ask yourself two questions: "Why?" and "Why not?" It's time to reignite your passion for your brand and be willing to take risks and stand by them--live by them--every day. There's nothing quite as exhilarating as seeing the demonstration of a brand living out loud. So go for it!

Are you an entrepreneur who is living out loud?

20 Ways to Waste Your Money

Whether a newbie or seasoned budgeter, nearly everyone has spending holes -- leaks in your budget that drain money with you hardly noticing.

These small drips can add up to big bucks. Once you find the holes and plug them, you'll keep more money in your pocket. That spare cash could be the ticket to finally being able to save, invest, or break your cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.

Here are 20 common ways people waste money. See if any of these sound familiar, and then look for ways to plug your own leaks.

How to waste your money

1. Buy new instead of used. Talk about a spending leak -- or, rather, a gush. Cars lose most of their value in the first few years, meaning thousands of dollars down the drain. However, recent used models -- those that are less than five years old -- can be a real value because you get a car that's still in fine working order for a fraction of the new-car price. And you'll pay less in collision insurance and taxes, too.

Cars aren't the only things worth buying used. Consider the savings on pre-owned books, toys, exercise equipment and furniture. (Of course, there are some things you're better off buying new, including mattresses, laptops, linens, shoes and safety equipment, such as car seats and bike helmets.)

2. Carry a credit-card balance. If you have a $1,000 balance on a card charging 18%, you blow $180 every year on interest. That's money you could certainly put to better use elsewhere. Get in the habit of paying off your balance in full each month.

3. Buy on impulse. When you buy before you think, you don't give yourself time to shop around for the best price. Resist the urge to make an impulse purchase by giving yourself a cool-off period. Go home and sleep on the decision. If you still want to make the purchase a day or so later, do your comparison shopping, check your budget and go for it. Oftentimes, though, I bet you'll decide you don't need the item after all.

4. Pay to use an ATM. A buck or two here and there may not seem like a big deal. But if you're frequenting ATMs outside your bank's network, the surcharges can add up quickly. Put that money back in your pocket by using ATMs in a surcharge-free network such as Allpoint or Money Pass.

5. Dine out frequently. A habit of spending $10, $20, $30 per person for dinner can be a huge drain on your wallet. Throw in a $6 sandwich for lunch and a $4 latte in the morning, and you've got quite a leak. Learn to cook, pack your lunch and brew your coffee at home and you could save a couple hundred bucks each month.

6. Let your money wallow. If you are stashing your savings in your checking account or a traditional bank account, you are wasting money. You could put it in a high-interest online savings account and get paid to save. You can even get an interest-bearing checking account through such reputable companies as Everbank, Charles Schwab, E*Trade and ING Direct.

7. Pay an upfront fee for a mutual fund. Selecting no-load funds can save you more than 5% in sales charges. Of course, no matter how well a fund has done in the past, you can't be sure how it will perform in the future. But if you pay a load, you'll begin the performance derby in the hole to the tune of the load. See the Kiplinger 25 for our favorite no-load funds.

8. Pay too much in taxes on investments. Are you investing in a tax-sheltered 401(k) or Roth IRA? If you're not maxing out those accounts before you invest in a taxable account, you're spending too much.

9. Buy brand-name instead of generic. From groceries to clothing to prescription drugs, you could save money by choosing the off-brand over the fancy label. And in many cases, you won't sacrifice much in quality. Clever advertising and fancy packaging don't make brand-name products better than lesser-known brands (see Similar Products, Different Prices).

10. Waste electricity. Of the total energy used to run home electronics, 40% is consumed when the appliances are turned off. Appliances with a clock or that operate by remote are typical culprits. The obvious way to pull the plug on your energy vampires is to do just that -- pull the plug. Or buy a device to do it for you, such as a Smart Power Strip ($31 to $44 at www.smarthomeusa.com, which will stop drawing electricity when the gadgets are turned off and pay for itself within a few months.

11. Pay banking fees. Overdraw your checking account and you'll pay $20 to $30 a pop, so it pays to keep tabs on your balance. Plus, are you still paying for a checking account? Free deals abound -- but make sure they're really free. For instance, will the bank charge a fee if your balance drops below a certain level or if you download your info into a personal-finance software program? That's not free.

12. Buy things you don't use. This sounds like a no-brainer to avoid, but how many times have you seen something on sale and thought you couldn't pass it up? Even if something is 50% off, you're spending too much if you don't use it. href=Couponing, for instance, can be a great way to save on your grocery bills. But if you buy things you wouldn't have purchased in the first place simply for the sake of using the coupon, you're wasting your money. The same goes for buying in bulk. A bargain is no bargain if it sits unused on your shelf or gets thrown away.

13. Own an extra car. Okay, so a car is a necessity for most people. But face it -- cars are a huge drain, from their loan payments to insurance fees to gas and maintenance costs. Own more than one car and you'll double or triple those expenses. Ask yourself if that second or third car is really necessary. Are you holding on to an old car for sentimental reasons? Can you or your spouse carpool, take public transportation or bike to work?

14. Ignore your local dollar store. Shopping at the dollar store can be hit-and-miss, but it's not all kitsch or junk. If you know what to buy, you can find some real bargains. For instance, my local dollar store charges 50 cents for greeting cards versus the $3-plus at a drug store or gift shop. (I have a big extended family so I figure this saves me more than $100 per year.) You can also score a deal on cleaning supplies, small kitchen tools, shampoos and soaps, holiday decorations, gift wrap and balloon bouquets.

15. Keep unhealthy habits. Smoking is not only bad for your health, it burns up your cash. A pack-a-day habit at $6 a pack costs $180 a month and $2,190 a year. A junk-food or tanning-bed habit can be costly as well. Not to mention the money you'll waste on medical bills down the road.

16. Be complacent about insurance. Your bill arrives and you pay it without a second thought. When was the last time you shopped around to determine whether you're getting the best deal? Rates vary widely from insurer to insurer and year to year. Reshopping your auto, home or renters insurance might save you hundreds of dollars.

It also pays to evaluate your insurance needs. For instance, upping your out-of-pocket deductible from $250 to $1,000 can save you 15% or more on your car insurance. Consider using the same insurer for your home and auto insurance -- you could snag up to 15% off for a multiple-line policy. And make sure you're not paying for insurance you don't need. For instance, you need life insurance only if someone is financially dependent upon you (such as a child).

17. Give Uncle Sam an interest-free loan. If you get a tax refund each April, you let the government take too much money in taxes from your paycheck all year long. Get that money back in your pocket -- and put it to work for you -- by adjusting your tax withholding. With a little discipline, you can use that extra cash each month to get started saving or pay down debt (or make ends meet to avoid going into debt in the first place). You can file a new Form W-4 with your employer at any time.

18. Pay for something you can get for free. Dust off your library card and check out books, music and movies for free (or dirt-cheap). Don't pay to receive your credit report when you're allowed to get it at no charge by law. Take advantage of kids-eat-free promotions. And dial 1-800-FREE-411 for free directory assistance.

19. Don't use a flexible-spending account. Your employer may allow you to set aside pretax dollars to pay for medical costs not covered by insurance. You can use the money for expenses such as therapy, contact lenses, insurance co-payments and over-the-counter drugs. You may be able to do the same for child-care costs.

20. Pay for unnecessary services. How many cable channels can a person watch? Do you really need all those extra features for your cell phone? Are you getting your money's worth out of that gym membership? Are you taking full advantage of your subscriptions (such as Netflix, TiVo or magazines)? Take a look at what you're paying for and what your family is actually using. Trim accordingly.

Copyrighted, Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.