Up until now, we’ve all heard about the various ramifications of one Presidential candidate over the other. We’ve heard about what differences will be made to the tax system and how it will affect you. And sometime after midnight tonight, we’ll know which set of changes might take effect.
So, now what? Regardless of who wins, if you put yourself in a position for it to not make a huge difference to you, you won’t have to worry.
Following a few principles we call the Beating Broke rules, we can set ourselves up financially such that changes to the tax code and other programs like Social Security and Medicaid have a very minimal impact on us.
Begin by paying off all of your debt. Most debt is bad debt anyways. Pay it off and you can afford to pay a little extra in taxes if you have to. Nobody likes taxes, but the law is the law and there is very little that you can do about that. Having fewer bills to pay frees up some money to compensate without having to take the money from another place like food or rent. While we’re at it. Stop acquiring more debt. Get debt free and stay that way.
Start Saving. Begin with an emergency fund and go from there. Once you have an emergency fund set up, start saving for retirement, college, and that new car and house. If you can pay cash for all those things, you don’t need to care whether social security or welfare or medicare or any other social program they put in place will still be available to you when you need it. Financial independence from those programs frees you to worry less about those policies and worry more about where you’re going to vacation this year.
With those two steps, you can make yourself nearly financially independent from the policies of our political leaders. They won’t help you much with their policies on foreign war, foreign relations, immigration, or many of the other policies. You’ve still got to decide on a candidate for those things. But if you can relieve yourself of worrying about their fiscal policies, you can focus more intently on their other policies.
Start now. The next election is in only 4 years.
I started this blog to share what I know and what I was learning about personal finance. Along the way I’ve met and found many blogging friends. Please feel free to connect with me on the Beating Broke accounts: Twitter and Facebook.
You can also connect with me personally at Novelnaut, Thatedeguy, Shane Ede, and my personal Twitter.
Leave a Reply