Building blocks for good finances

Yesterday, I described some of the things that this blog will be dealing with over the next few days.

Today, I want to go over some basics that go along with getting a good base for your finances.

A few years ago, I was selling insurance and one of the main selling points that we were instructed to emphasize was the following:

"Nobody plans to fail...they fail to plan."

Then, we were supposed to go into our spiel about how a hefty life insurance coverage will protest your loved ones in the event of a catastrophic tragedy.

Which basically meant that you kicked off. This is important and will be touched on more in a later blog.

Where I got in a little hot water was not trying to sell the policies that produced the most income, like whole life and universal life.

I usually suggested to my customers that a term policy is the best option. It provides more coverage and is a lot cheaper. That cut down on the premiums and made me less money, but was usually the best choice.

So I didn't exactly strike it rich as an insurance salesman.

Now I would like to start going over some of the basics on improving your financial situation.

If you are having problems with your finances and living pay check to pay check, or seeing the month outlast your money, you are certainly not alone.

This is a situation many of us go through. Aside from sex, money can cause more problems than anything else.

People either have too much money and don't have a clue on what to do with it, or they don't have enough money.

If a person does not have enough money, it can be because they simply don't make enough money. Or, it can be because they don't budget and plain correctly, or live over their means.

I see this a lot in my job. Most people are just not real smart when it comes to finances. This is not to condemn anybody, as a country, we do a poor job on teaching people how to deal with their money.

We teach the students about history, math, english, science and other things, but neglect the basics of personal finance.

That means we are left to deal with it on our own. Some people learn from family or friends, while others study and research.

Thanks to the internet, there are numerous ways to learn about money and personal finances.

The first thing you need to decide is what is important to you regarding your finances. If you are a single person, that makes it a lot easier.

However, if you are married, this is something you and your spouse must get together and decide.

For a lot of people, this usually leads to arguments as the spouses usually have different ideas. One of you might be a saver while the other wants to spend every penny that comes in and then some.

If that is the case, you have some problems and need to try and educate the other person.

Once you have decided on what is important, you and your other half (notice I didn't say better half?) will need to decide on what is important.

It might be paying off all debt, buying a house, saving or whatever.

In the next blog, I will go over ways to meet your goals.

Improving your finances

As this is my first blog on personal finance, I wanted to introduce myself and tell a little about what I will be writing about.

I have worked in a bank for almost 17 years now at a pair of small banks. During this time, I have seen and heard about everything you could think of concerning personal finance.

My customers look to me to do a little bit of everything, from helping them balance their checkbook, borrow money for a variety of purposes, save money, invest their money and much more.

Currently, I am a vice president and a branch manager. I have been in this position almost five years after leaving my former job because of a merger that would have meant I would be working at the other bank in town.

I have been lending money to good and not-so good borrowers for over 10 years. As you will see, I am not the best banker as I care about the customers. To be a good banker, I guess you have to be like Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life.

Sorry, I am not that cold. I prefer to help people and sometimes that gets me in trouble as loans go south.

We make about every kind of loan you can imagine. I have loaned customers money for cattle, cars, homes, businesses and too many others to count.

During the next few blogs, I plan to do a series on debt reduction. You might be an expert on debt reduction or a novice, but hopefully you will learn something.

In the future, I will discuss ways to better improve your finances and hopefully point you in the right direction.

But first, as I mentioned previously, will be a series on debt and getting debt free.

These are some of the items I will concentrate on as we go along in the series:

Setting your goals; Determining where you currently are with your debt; A proper budget; Good debt vs. bad debt; Getting your plan together; Implementing your plan.

I know, some of this isn't the most exciting reading available out in cyberspace. But hopefully you can learn something that will prove helpful to you, your family, relatives, co-worker or friends.