{"id":2033,"date":"2008-11-22T19:00:23","date_gmt":"2008-11-22T19:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/?p=2033"},"modified":"2008-11-22T19:00:23","modified_gmt":"2008-11-22T19:00:23","slug":"putting-your-finances-in-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/putting-your-finances-in-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting Your Finances In Order"},"content":{"rendered":"

The current economic downturn is bringing to light lots of financial crises, On a big-business level, and an at-home personal level too. <\/p>\n

It makes me want to sit back, and take stock of my life, and my money. It also makes me want to take a long hard look at how, and why I spend my money the way that I do. I have very little debt, and I pay my credit cards off in full each month. Still though, there are months when I put more on credit than I need to. <\/p>\n

There are months when I spend more on food than I should, or clothes, or electronics. There have been a couple of months recently when getting that credit card bill the next month hurt a bit. So, what’s behind that?<\/p>\n

What’s behind it for you, when you do it? Will you tell me?<\/p>\n

Even though I care for my credit score, and manage my money well enough, the finer points of budgeting still seem to elude me. I’ll set a number for something (Christmas for example) and then that number flies right out the window when I shop. <\/p>\n

Maybe it’s worthwhile to revisit some of the basic tenets of money management, especially when it comes to credit cards. From now on, before I spend any money (on credit or not) I am going to ask myself the following questions:<\/p>\n