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Have you ever heard the saying, “Patience is a virtue?”. Knowing how impatient I am, my mom used to tell me this whenever I'd get upset about something not happening when I wanted it to happen.

Having patience can not only help you deal with a number of situations in your life but patience can also save you money.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most patient person in the world. When I want something, I want it now. If you tell me that you will be here at 1pm, I would really like you to be there at 12:55pm. On the flip side, if I tell you I will be there at 1pm, you should expect me to be there about 12:50pm.

Being impatient has cost me tons of money in the past. It all goes back to me wanting it NOW. I've written several times on this blog that electronic gadgets are my weakness. When I saw something I liked, I'd go ahead and purchase it without planning for it or thinking about how it would affect my finances. Of course, the end result of my impatience was a mound of credit card debt.

I hate to even think about how much money I've thrown away by not waiting. We all know that there are usually big sales around certain times of the year. If there is something I wanted, I didn't have the patience to wait for a sale. For example, last year, I wanted a new flat screen TV. Instead of waiting for the big sales at the end of the year, I bought my new TV in August. Of course, around Christmas time, I saw the same TV advertised for about $200 less than I'd paid just four months earlier.

These days, I'm better at being patient in my personal finances. I plan and save for my next purchase. I still splurge every now and then but I manage that by setting a small amount of money aside each month in a special account for that purpose.

What about you? Does your lack of patience cost you money?

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I had the frustrating experience of going through the car buying experience this past weekend. This car was not for me but for my cousin who turned 18 on Friday. Yep, this is the same cousin from this post. He has been at his job now for a year and a half and managed to save over $8000 (I'm so proud of him). He came to me because he wanted to buy a car and wanted to make sure he made a wise decision. I was more than happy to help him out because I didn't want him to make the same bad decisions I did when I bought my first car at 18.

The first thing we did was sit down and discuss what his price range was and how he would pay for the car. Normally, I would have told him to take the majority of his savings to pay for the car in full but make sure he leaves himself enough money for an unexpected financial emergency. This time though, I went a different route. You see, since I wrote the "I Want to Be Rich Like You" post, he has become a father. He has a beautiful three month old baby boy. Granted, I wish it had not happened but what is done, is done. We've had numerous discussions about it and he knows I will be on his back to make sure he is taking care of his responsibility. Seeing as how he has this additional responsibility, I wanted him to only use a small portion of his savings. We decided on a price range of no more than $10,000 and he was going to be putting $2000 as a down payment; the rest would be financed. He has no other debt and can handle a small car loan comfortably. I told him he could always make extra payments to pay off the loan early. I usually would be against financing a car but in his situation, we felt that needed to pay a little more to be sure he had a good, reliable car to transport his son. Since he did not have enough saved to pay for the purchase in full while still leaving himself a hefty emergency fund, his next best option was to finance the purchase.

We did research online for safe, reliable and fuel efficient used cars and decided on him purchasing a used Nissan Sentra or used Honda Civic. Knowing what we were looking for and the price range, we headed off to search for the vehicle. We went to about 15 car lots until we found the perfect car for him. We found a used 2006 Nissan Sentra with less than 23,000 miles with an asking price of $12,900. The car was exactly what he was looking for so we sat down to wheel and deal with the salesman. I won't go through all the negotiation details with the salesperson but we ended up getting the car three hours later for $9600.

Since he had no credit history, he needed a cosigner. His mother took the responsibility of cosigning the loan because this was one thing I was not willing to do. (Have you watched any of the tv court shows about people cosigning loans and having their credit ruined when the person they cosigned for did not pay the loan?).

Had he gone to the dealership alone to purchase the vehicle, he probably would have paid about $4000 more for this vehicle. He had never purchased a vehicle before so he did not know you could negotiate the purchase price. That was a savings of $3300. He also did not know about all the junk fees the dealer adds to the purchase. I was able to get them to waive the document fee for a savings of $489. The dealer also added in a charge for vehicle etching (basically, this is a charge for putting the vin # on the glass). Since this was a used vehicle, this charge had already been covered by whomever originally purchased the vehicle. This was a savings of $239.

As the title says, knowledge is power. Since he did not know what he was doing, he was smart enough to find someone who did. Unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way and made all the same mistakes myself with my first car. These days, if I am not sure about something, I find someone who knows better than I do or I do research until I am better able to make a decision.

In the words of Tom Petty, "The Waiting is the Hardest Part". I put in an offer on an investment property on Monday. My realtor called me and advised that the offer has been forwarded to the bank's asset manager for final approval. There are no other offers on the table and I made a full price offer so it looks like I should get the property. I am excited and nervous all at the same time. One of my dreams is to be able to build a portfolio of real estate and this purchase will help me get closer to fulfilling that dream.

One of my character flaws is that I am very impatient. This is also one of the reasons I got in debt. I did not have the patience to wait and save up for a purchase.

Hopefully, I will hear something tomorrow so I will know if I am adding another property to my portfolio of if I need to continue shopping.