Do you love your work? Everybody has heard the saying “Do what you love,” and most have become immune to the phrase. But what is the difference between working at a job you love and at a job you tolerate or are forced to do. What is it costing you to be working at a job that you like compared to one that you really love?

Let’s look at what having a job that you love versus everything else can mean to you:

1. Working longer – If you love what you are doing, you will be drawn to working at it more. Nobody will have to ask you to stay longer or to come in on the weekend; it will be something that you will want to do on your own. You will automatically start putting in 110% in terms of time. The market or your boss will take notice and your compensation will also increase.
2. Increased effectiveness and productivity – Because you love the work, you will want to learn everything about it and become the best at every little nuance of the job. It will be easier to get to the point where you can accomplish tasks perfectly the first time without having to redo them because of poor performance. Increased effectiveness and productivity will automatically lead to higher compensation and better pay.
3. Job security – Companies regularly lay off the low performers, especially in this economy. Picking a career that you love will make you immune to job layoffs because you will be the most effective person at the job. You will be producing as much as several other people can produce together. Letting go of you will cost the company a lot more than keeping you. And if you are ever let go, you will usually have many offers from other companies waiting for you.

Look over your job situation today and decide what you have to do to get to the job that you love. Start making a plan to get there as soon as you can.

Excessive debt can be just as restrictive on spending as responsible use of credit. Coupled with the reduced freedom that accompanies debt, lowering – or eliminating debt – is a worthy goal.

Consider two different people, one who pays her credit card balance in full and another whose credit is maxed out. The first lives within her means by choice and the second is forced to live within his means because he can’t tap into credit for more wasteful spending. Both are basically in the same situation, but the first person has significantly more freedom.

Which person has the flexibility to take a much needed vacation or effortlessly handle an unexpected repair bill? The first person could use her credit card for either purpose. That probably isn’t necessary, though. Her lack of debt probably also let her build an emergency fund and perhaps a vacation fund. The second person would be stuck. Since his money was mostly going to the high interest and fees of his credit card, he probably has little savings and no way to pay for either expense. He may have to forgo the vacation and turn to a prohibitively expensive payday loan for the car repair.

The liberation that comes with lower debt extends beyond credit cards. Making a significant down payment on my house did more than allow me to avoid PMI. The equity I started with as a result, plus the additional equity prepaying added, made it so that I didn’t have to worry about declining home prices when it was time to sell. If I had less equity, I might have been forced to stay in that house even though I wanted to relocate.

To accelerate your own plan towards more freedom through lower debt, you can consolidate your existing debt with a P2P loan from Lending Club. By considerably lowering the average interest rate on your debt, you’ll be able to pay it off much more quickly. As your debt melts away, so too will your stress, as freedom returns to your life.

Is a high level of debt restricting your freedom?

If you follow Lending Club, you probably pay attention to money and the markets. You probably have a better idea than the average consumer about how investments, interest rates, and the markets work. Still, though, the question remains: How do you use this knowledge? Have you built a personal finance plan? How have you used your knowledge of personal finance to really enhance your life?

I’ve noticed that many of my friends feel that passively reading about personal finance is enough. For years, I read financial blogs and articles without ever actually making the effort to design and implement a financial plan. However, it just took a single day to build it---I sat down, focused on what I wanted to accomplish, and built a plan that allowed me to achieve my goals without too many sacrifices. Thanks to this financial planning, I was able to achieve my goal of living in South America without incurring any debt.

Read Mike Smith’s recent article about three-year plans and make the decision. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Sit down, make a list of financial goals, and figure out a way to get there. I guarantee you won’t regret it.

Have you already built a financial plan? Tell us about your financial goals in the comments. Are you on track to achieve them?

There are many different ways to save on food expenses, but one of the simplest is to plan your meals ahead of time. This straightforward process will save you both time and money.

Planning your meals saves you time in many ways. First, you reduce the overhead of deciding what to cook. Rather than having to think about what to make, checking for ingredients, and shopping on a daily basis, you can batch those tasks into a more efficient timeframe, such as a weekly basis. It’s a great feeling to simply look at your meal schedule in the morning, instantly know what will be for dinner, and be confident that the ingredients are already on hand.

On way meal that planning allows you to save money is that you can plan around the items that happen to be on sale that week. You can take advantage of the items with the largest discount. Browsing the store circular will also inspire menu ideas to help make the process of planning your meals quick and easy.

As an added benefit, meal planning lets you further employ one of the secrets of lower grocery bills: shopping to a list. Since you’ll know what you need to buy to make all of your planned meals, you can easily create an efficient shopping list. Sticking to that list allows you to buy what you need and nothing more.

If you like to eat out, meal planning can help you save there, too. By planning ahead of time, you can make your night out fall on the day that a particular deal or special promotion is offered at your favorite restaurant.

Having a plan always leaves you better prepared than if you have to make decisions as you go along. There’s nothing to say that you can’t deviate from your plan as circumstances evolve, but having an idea of what you’ll be eating and when forms a basis for an efficient and inexpensive allocation of your food budget.

Do you plan your meals ahead of time?

As families look to stretch fewer dollars further, the will – and perhaps the need – to get more out of things they already own rises as well. While it’s certainly noble to make some repairs yourself, or employ a professional, the repair versus replace debate actually becomes more difficult when you practice other frugal habits.

Repairing a worn out item that you bought new at full price might make sense if you would replace it with a similar purchase. If you were to find a significantly discounted replacement at a local thrift store or use a combination of sales and coupons, repair may not actually save you any money. Spending $25 to repair a $100 pair of shoes seems like a smart move unless you got those shoes for $5 second-hand. Should you base your decision to repair or replace based on the worth of the item or the price you paid? Is the repair cost versus replacement cost a better metric for making the decision?

Another factor is that repairing traditionally has the added benefit of not creating the waste of discarding your current item, but that too may be more complicated depending on your lifestyle. If you plan to donate your item, rather than discard it, you aren’t really wasting the current item. Also, replacing it with another used item (that’s either in better shape or a better fit for your needs) doesn’t require a new product to be produced.

With frugal and environment-friendly lifestyle choices, the debate between repairing and replacing items gets more complicated. Though it might be more difficult to make a decision, the good news is that both choices are probably good ones. Either choice has the potential to be cost-effective with limited waste, meaning that you really can’t go wrong.

How do you decide whether to repair or replace an item?