Part of being cash clever is avoiding pointless capital outlay – not spending money – part of it is making sure you have plenty coming in the other direction, filling up your coffers with cash!
After all, you can't begin to Be Cash Clever unless you actually have some cash, can you…
Now, before I get all Rich Dad Poor Dad and start talking about income streams, its important to note that the number one cash clever way to secure your financial future is to get yourself a good job.
Whatever your political ideology might be, I think everyone, including the Communist republic of China, accepts that the world functions with money, and the best way to achieve a little bit of lucre is to trade time, and labour, for a salary.
This is income stream number one.
You need this one to be as high as possible.
But, once you've got your regular wage coming in, there's lots of other income streams that you can get going without too much effort, and these range from the Safe Investments up to the Riskier Investments.
I'm not a financial advisor, but it always helps to have an opinion or two – you never know, you just might get an idea you had not considered.
So here is a non exhaustive list of Low Risk Income Streams because taking risks is like gambling: you can lose, and losing money is not the Be Cash Clever way!
- Use an Instant Savings Account – don't leave large sums of money floating around in your bank's current account: they wouldn't lend to you for free, so don't do it the other way around! Get an instant access savings account and transfer all of your credit into and out of it as required – takes literally minutes with online banking. Make sure you leave enough in to cover any bills that could be scheduled to go out, though 🙂
- Save Long Term – if you have a large amount of money you'd like to save, save it over a period of 1, 3 or 5 years to achieve a higher rate of interest.
- Buy Bonds – There are lots of guaranteed low risk bonds out there. Shop around and add some to your portfolio. Ideally, you should buy bonds every month or two, so that, in a year or two, you will begin receiving regular income from them.
- Pension Plan – We are all going to get old. We are all going to want to finish work some day. We should all be pension planning. Whether you buy a pension, or simply invest in savings yourself, you need to think seriously about how much cash you think you'll need in your retirement and begin saving now.
The above list will mean that your spare cash works for you, creating residual income while you do other things, multiplying your effort in your day job and providing additional funds for your future.
If there is one important idea today, it is this: Have a pension plan, no matter how young you think you are.