1. Have some emergency money in a liquid account (3 months of expenses is about right)
2. Prepare for major expenses if you can; for example, save some money on a monthly basis for your annual property tax payment
3. Take some time and estimate what your tax contribution will be for the year and adjust your tax withheld numbers accordingly
4. Save a set amount monthly (before it hits your bank account) for retirement (in an account that is beneficial for you tax dollars) or perhaps a down payment for a home (or both!)
5. Learn how to manage your personal finance by spending some time (not too much, an hour a week perhaps?) every week to check out new information and ideas

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 2nd, 2005 at 10:44 am and is filed under Yoshi's Advisory Column. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.