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Posts Tagged ‘saving money’

Things are still pretty tight with the economy these days, which means saving money is still as important as ever. You might think you’re doing all you can, but We’ll show a few more (painless) ways to pocket a few more dollars.

Shopping and Food
•   Don’t shop when you’re hungry, wait until you’ve already eaten. You’ll be less tempted to grap items that you really don’t need and can drain your budget.
•    Sign up for customer rewards programs, especially with retailers you shop frequently. For example, supermarkets, department stores, gas stations, and many more offer rewards programs that can net coupons and discounts and save you money.
•    To save money on gas, try to combine errands instead of heading out every time you need something.
•    It’s the small things that can really add up; resist the urge to grab a snack when you get gas or make small purchases here and there. It’s hard to remember all those small purchases, so you’ll end up spending for more than you might think.
•    Use coupons! Subscribe to two or three Sunday newspapers and clip the coupons. The cost of those papers and the time you spend trying to find discounts will more than make up for the savings you’ll end up with.
•    Before making large purchases, go online and consult consumer reviews to find which brands and models can give you the most bang for your buck.

Bills
•    Avoid late fees by paying your credit card bill on time.
•    Call your credit card company and inquire about a rate reduction. Ask to speak to a supervisor and tell them you will take your business elsewhere if they can’t give you one.
•    Turn the lights off in rooms not in use and adjust the temperature when leaving the house or going to bed to save on your utilities.
•    Save on your electric bill by changing the filters in air conditioners and furnaces to ensure they are running efficiently.

Cars and Gas
•    Make sure to maintain your vehicle to ensure it runs smoother and uses less gas.
•    Minimize idling by avoid driving during rush hour or heavy traffic and going inside instead of sitting in the drive-through.
•   Take public transportation or carpool whenever possible.

Entertainment
•    Try to limit eating out to just once a week.
•    Rent movies instead of going to the movie theater; look into Netflix or Blockbuster online rentals, or even Redbox.
•    Find free, fun things to do in your area such as free parks, outdoor concerts, festicals, farmers’ markets, or museums.

Are you living beyond your means?  Do you know exactly what you are spending each month or are your outgoings escalating out of control?  When was the last time you carried out a financial health check? If your answers are no, no and never then read on to find out some top ways of managing your money!

There are many important responsibilities to take care of as an adult – our health, family, work, friendships, hobbies and home – but how many of us devote as much time to our financial health, as we do to all the other tasks we have to perform?Few of us!Yet successfully managing your money is the basis of your ability to make the most of almost every other aspect of your life.

Why not think about setting aside some time each week to go through your finances and make sure that you are on track for the month?It will certainly be worth the effort and time because you will no doubt find places to save money.

Budgeting

A priority is to lay out what comprises your monthly budget – money coming in as well as money going out.

Incoming

It’s usually easy enough to work out what we have coming in – the list is often a lot shorter than for the one going out!  You will need to include your wages or government benefits and any family assistance that you receive~Include your wages or government benefits or family assistance that your receive}.  If you have any other regular incoming funds add them also.

Working out Your Outgoings

Ensure that everything you spend money on is included.  It’s often the little things that add up and take us over our monthly budget.  So apart from the big costs such as mortgage or rent payments, food and loans which you will need to list, don’t forget to also include:

* Lunches – (yours, your children’s and your partners)
* Travel
* Magazines
* The quick trips to the corner store
* Birthday Cards and Presents
* Children’s Pocket Money
* Restaurants/Take Out Meals
* Tea/Coffee or other beverage
* Donations to Charities
* Vet’s Bills
* Dentistry
* Children’s Clubs and Activities
* Beer/Wine
* Lottery Tickets

When you have figures for both your incoming and outgoings, take one from the other to see how you stand.  You may be surprised at what you find!

If you are going over your monthly budget you are more than likely using your credit card frequently to pay for extras.  This is OK in the short term as long as you can pay off your credit card debt each month, but managing your money in this way over the long term can lead to your debts spiralling out of control, especially when you consider how much the credit card companies are making out of you.

Look through your list of outgoings and see what you can cut down on or cut out altogether and start taking charge of managing your money instead of it managing you!

Never before in history has personal debt been at such a high level. Financial problems are the leading cause of divorce, depression and any other number of crushing personal problems. Think how much better you would feel should you be able to realize the dream of debt free living.

I’m now find myself in the middle years of my life and until recently I’ve experienced living in almost constant debt. The pressure on my physical and mental health, relationships and emotions was immense and I can never go back and re-live those years. I would like for you to not have to go through that same pain and so below I have laid out how to achieve debt free living in 7 (not necessarily easy) steps.

1. Accept that change is neccesary. Doing the same things you’ve always done is going to keep producing the same painful results.

2. Where Are You? Take an afternoon to write down your existing debts, all your current assets (house, car, etc), and how much money you have coming and going out every month.

3. How would you like your life to be? Be introspective and ask yourself some serious questions. Don’t spend time on little items but really ask yourself – What are my principles and values? What am I seeking in life? Use these as your defining goals and base all future decisions on them.

4. What are your options? Everyday you’re faced with decisions that affect both additional income and how you spend your money.

5. Choose your options. Take step 4 and make the difficult decisions. Second job? Internet business? Cancel your cable TV subscription? Reduce your cell phone plan? These are the hard decisions you need to make.

6. Create a plan. Having made your decisions, set them down in writing. This is the guide that you use to make day to day decisions which must be made to meet your ultimate objectives.

7. Monitor & celebrate your successes. Regularly analyze the progress you’re making and develop a system of rewarding yourself for each objective that you meet. Tweak the things that do not seem to be working. Before long you’ll be financially free in way that that makes your old worries seem a lifetime away.

Find Out More : 7 Steps Debt Free

Over the past few years, I have been saving money each month, not for any particular reason like for example to buy a house, but just in case something big went wrong. It is in a way a form of self-insurance. In this article I write about the benefits of doing this and about my own personal experiences, i.e how hard or easy it has been saving in this way.

I am not involved within this “savings or investments industry” and am therefore not attempting to sell you anything via this article. I am merely relaying my own personal experiences etc. I am actually involved in various fields including offering stuttering information, business cost reduction advice and helping people to learn how to play the guitar.

Maybe I am being paranoid but I always seemed to have far less money than what my friends had. Four years ago a group of us went to Spain for a two-week holiday. I will never forget the moment when one of my friends asked how much money each of us were taking on the holiday. We all answered one by one and to my horror not only did I have the least amount but I had around two hundred pounds less than the next lowest person. It was not because I was being tight, it was because I did not have anymore. At the time I had even found it very hard to save up this amount of money; looking back I feel quite ashamed at my lack of discipline at the time - I just used to waste so much money.

When I arrived back from this holiday I decided that I needed to change my attitude on financial matters. I read a few books and spoke to a number of people about the best way for me to move forward. I did not want to have to struggle next year if there is to be another holiday for example.

I believed the answer was to start saving an amount every month which would leave my account via direct debit. I was the type of person who would basically spend whatever I had or earned. If it was in the bank therefore I would spend it. It was to leave my account via direct debit I would have no way of course to spend it.

I set up one of these savings policies and started it a modest £30 a month. I am very pleased to say that it did not exactly have a major negative impact on my social life. The policy itself was in some way linked to the stock market and this itself was quite exciting, sad I know. After a year I received a statement through the post and I was quite happy to see that I was actually worth something for a change. I then decided to increase the amount that I was going to save to £50 a month.

I would strongly advise other people to commence saving on a regular basis as it has certainly given me a piece of mind.

Speaking from experience I can say it’s all too easy to deny the financial issues to yourself but they will not go away. They won’t. The economic downturn is not over yet so if you’ve not prepared it’s not too late but you need to start now.

Accumulate funds for emergency savings. It is important to save money in an emergency savings fund where you have immediate and penalty-free access. It is advisable to build up rainy-day savings accounts to a level worth about three months of regular living expenses. The best place to park this money would be in a high interest savings account.

Increase Your Savings. Try to arrange for an automatic savings plan. This arrangement enables you to set aside specific amounts of cash automatically transferred from a checking account to savings accounts earning high interest or to a mutual fund of your choice. A high interest savings account should be used but you should choose one with easy access. A retirement fund will not do it because this is money you won’t need for quite a while.

Spend less. An obvious suggestion but it can seem difficult to achieve. Bundle your cell and landline phones together to save money. You can get discounts from telecommunications carriers this way. You should compare the deals on the market to get the best value deal. Cut spending on your weekly grocery bill by choosing supermarket own label brands, going to markets or joining a local food co-op. Bum rides in a car pool or take public transport instead. If you have two cars and one is seldom used, consider selling the other one. Put all the money you save in a high interest savings account intended for the rainy days.

Lower your credit card debts. Tough times mean you must make every penny go a long way. It does not make sense to shell out your hard-earned money to pay 17 per cent (or whatever) interest on debt from credit cards. Try to pay off in full the balance due each month; if that is difficult, at least pay much more than the minimum amount. Consider moving from credit to debit cards

Increase household income. During a recession this can be difficult. But you can invest some of your time in your skills and make additional money doing it. If you have a skills such as programming or any other service people may require then you could offer your services as a freelancer online or in your local area. In single income households the partner could try and take on casual or one off jobs for extra income. You could start a small business which might blossom into something bigger once the recession is over.

Make use of allowable tax deductions. Be on the lookout for tax deductible expenses such as education, charitable donations and your home office. Be religious about keeping every related receipt, so you can use these to support tax deduction claims. Put the money saved on personal tax deductions into your high interest savings account.

Spruce up your résumé. Recessions can lead to more layoffs. It is best to polish the résumé to make it current, in case the need to apply for a new job arises. Try and get the resume down to one or two pages to keep it to the point. Make it presentable, but not flashy. Your relevant work experience should stand out.

Don’t wait for the crisis to hit you, get yourself ready now. This will give you a strong sense of purpose even as it shores up your position.

Saving money takes time and discipline, but with the right strategy and a good savings account you can reach your savings goals a lot faster than you might think.

Many of the good things in life cost money and saving for big items like cars, boats, or even houses, can take months or years. However, with the proper planning and by creating savings goals you might be making that dream purchase a lot sooner than you think.

Before you begin to plan your saving strategy, you should open a high interest savings account if you don’t already have one. This will allow you to keep your savings completely separate from the rest of your money and will pay a higher interest rate. Also, if you are willing to leave the money untouched for a certain number of months, or even years, you should be able to get an even better interest rate. There are plenty of savings accounts available, so shop around for one with good interest rates and low fees.

When you have found a good savings account you can start plotting some goals. As with much in life, it all comes down to time and money – how much you want to save and when you want to have it by. There are plenty of savings goals calculators online that will tell you how much you need to put away each month.

Do not overstretch yourself. If necessary, establish a longer timeframe so you can save without putting yourself under too much pressure. Alternatively, you could take a detailed look at your personal spending to see how you can save money here and there. Ask yourself if there are some everyday items or expenses that you could live without in order to hit your savings goals faster?

The best thing to do now is create a household budget to get a good idea of all your typical ingoings and outgoings each month. It is better to over-estimate here to make sure you have enough to live comfortably. If you find you have money left over each month you can easily deposit to your savings account.

After you complete your goals and work out the amount your going to need to save each month to hit those goals on time there are some tips make things as easy as possible. First, you should arrange regular auto-deposits into your savings account from your checking account as soon as you are paid. Another option is to ask your employer if they can split your salary payments to some of your pay goes direct to your savings account each paycheck. This will reduce the temptation to spend and get your money working for you in your savings account as early as possible.

If you can do so it is critical to avoid debt wherever you can. If you have longer term, larger loans then you will just have to factor that into your budget. However, any new debt, and especially debt from credit cards, should be avoided at all costs. Attempting to save while trying to tackle an expensive credit card debt is like taking one step forward and two steps back.

When you start out your goals might seem a long way away but with some commitment those goals can be reached. For longer-term savings goals you may find that your circumstances change during the process and you can save the money even faster than expected.

Article by Richard from Click 4 savings comparison group of sites which compare products including. Visitors can compare products including ANZ Online Saver and then apply online with the bank.

Once you have calculated precisely how much money
you owe then it is time to create a budget that will help you to use your income more efficiently by covering all your necessary expenditure and working towards the elimination of your debt.

A budget can be prepared in a book or more effectively online using a program such as Excel.

Now when you prepare your budget you need to take into account everything that you can think of relating to income and expenditure and this budget will need to be updated on a regular basis as more things come to mind when there are changes in your financial position.

This is why it makes it a lot easier to use a program such as Excel where totals can be added quickly and you will be able to see in a matter of seconds which direction you are going in and whether the steps that you have made have resulted in positive changes towards your financial well-being.

Where you are unsure about specific parts of the budget such as how much money you spend per week on food and other essential items, you will have to make an estimate initially until you are able to take notes the next time you go to the shops and see precisely how much you spend.

Once you get some of these figures you will be able to determine whether you are overspending in particular areas and what you can do about reducing such expense.
Your food shopping is one area where you could save a considerable amount of money because most people don't have any strict limits on their food spending.

Once again changes can only be made if you know precisely what you’ve been doing in the past and where you can make the changes in the future.
It might mean that you have to completely change the types of foods that you are buying and often the benefit of doing this is you improve your health along the way by buying food that is better for you.

Budgeting is your way to gain control over your finances once again. In fact it is the only way for you to gain control. It is a lot easier than you might expect and once you begin to use a budget you will wonder how you ever managed your finances in the past without having a budget.

A student tend to take money for granted, while in college, because of all the activities, studying, and not to mention, hanging out with your peers. You don’t want to get yourself in debt by overspending your allowance. For this reason, you need to pay close attention to your spending habits.

Here are some simple, easy to follow guidelines on how students can save money:

1. List all of your expenses.

• You should have an idea, by now, how much money you intend to have for each week or month of classes. The money you live on could be from a part time job, student loan, or it could be from your parents. Make a list of things that are important like books , food and school supplies, that’ll give you an idea on the amount needed to spend each week. Be sure to put aside some emergency cash for expenses.

2. Try not to use your credit cards.

• Theoretically, it would be much simpler not to carry your debit or credit card with you all the time. But keep them handy for big expenses that you do not have funds for. To keep from overspending, if you need to purchase small items, its best to use cash.

3. Change your eating habits.

• Eating out frequently might save you time but it won’t save you money. Eating at fast food restaurants, in the long run, will cost you more. Instead, spend your money on groceries to eat in your dorm or apartment; you could even save more by packing your lunch. By planning your meals and eating habits, you’ll not only same money but you will eat healthier.

4. Be sure to treat yourself every now and then.

You can save a lot of money by following the simple ideas mentioned on this guide while you are in college studying. And maybe, you might be able to save enough to afford yourself a big item that in other circumstances, you would not be able to afford.

For more Financial Advice… Check out the Financial Tips Blog

Creating a household budget needs to be one of the first steps in any plan to take control of your spending and financial situation. The basic idea for a monthly budget is to work out how much money you have in comings versus what is being spent and how you are spending it. Now you are armed with all the information it’s time to make some changes to reach your goals.

Follow these simple step by step instructions to creating a budget for your household.

1: Calculate Your Incomings: This should be quite simple. You need to calculate your typical incomings per month such as pay checks (after tax), bonuses and dividends from any investments. If there are some payments you only get once or twice a year such as bonuses then average that figure out over a year to give you a typical month.

2: Calculate Your Outgoings: Calculating your outgoings is a little bit more complicated as you spend money in far more ways than you earn it. Go over your statements for your bank account and credit cards for the past few months and figure out how much you have in outgoings each month and where it is going. Credit and debit card transactions may be easier to keep tabs on but it’s hard to see where cash withdrawn from ATM’s has ended up. It may be a good idea to keep a spending diary with you for a couple of weeks to take note of all your cash spending. Hopefully you will find your typical outgoings are lower than your incomings but often this is not the case. You may be surprised to find your outgoings are higher than you incomings which means you will be going deeper into debt each month which is not sustainable.

3. Classify Your Outgoings: Once you have worked out all your outgoings it makes sense to classify them together into categories such as groceries, utilities, clothes, entertainment, loan repayments, travel and so on. By grouping your expenses you’ll quickly see the areas that are sucking up most of your money.

4: Sort out the essentials, the nice to haves and the not required: Now you can see where your money is going then you need to decide what can be changed. There may be some expenses on there that you feel cannot be changed such as rent or mortgage payments, insurances and so on. If you need to make large cutbacks then perhaps even these items could be reduced by downsizing your home. Assuming however that you are not looking for such drastic measures then you need to find other places to make changes. Perhaps you could switch your broadband, cell phone and landline phone deals to a more optimal plan, you could switch to a cheaper pay TV package or get rid of it all together. Common areas for cutbacks are reducing your entertainment and shopping expenses for items such as dining out, buying music, clothes and so on.

5: Make Goals: You should now have figured out what you are spending and where you can make cut backs. You shouldn’t be aiming to create a budget just to survice on; you should be looking to have spare money to increase your net worth each month. Two ways in which this could be done is by reducing debts or increasing your savings. If you are in debt then the goal should be to get out of debt as soon as possible. Set goals for how much you want to pay off per month and build this into your budget. Once you have paid off debts then the focus can become on saving money each month via a high interest savings account. High interest savings account products have high interest rates and accumulate quickly when you make regular monthly deposits. You should make it a goal to increase your net worth each month by either reducing your debts or boost your savings so you have money saved for unexpected expenses or to purchase large items debt free. There are many other options for extra money in your budget such as investments in shares and so on.

6: Keep Yourself in Check: Make sure you keep reviewing your budget and looking for areas where you can make further trimmings and savings. Don’t forget that a budget is not just about managing to get from one pay check to the next but should be a long term plan to improve your financial wellbeing.

Article provided thanks to www.compareyourbank.com.au a consumer finance comparison site including online savings accounts. Products can be compared side by side looking at comparable features before making an application online.

When people see something that strikes their interest, the choice of buying it or not may happen in a matter of minutes. It doesn’t matter if it is a house, a car or groceries because all of these cost money.

The average household spends more than $700 a month on expenses. This includes paying for the bills or loans and buying other things needed by the family.

In order to save money on costs and expenses, the parents must practice budgeting to make sure that there is enough cash to last throughout the entire month. If both parents are working, a portion of the paycheck must go to the bank. At least here, the depositors can be assured that this is kept in a secure place while earning interest.

A rule must be set in regards to purchases. If this exceeds for example $200, the couple must first talk about to see if this is really needed. Some of the items found in stores will likely exceed this limit. When this occurs, its a good idea to shop around for something of similar quality.

If the spouses really want it, instead of paying this with cash on hand, there is no harm in asking the sales person if there is a payment plan good for six months to a year if this is paid using a credit card. Some companies offer 0% interest while others offer rebates that can be used on the next purchase.

A lot of parents give their kids allowances. As these kids get older, they will surely ask for an increase in the amount given to them. Should this happen, perhaps it is time to talk to the kids about getting a part time job like delivering newspapers or gardening so the extra cash can be put to good use.

Almost everyone in the household uses the phone. Its used for international or local calls, Maybe changing to another service provider would be good if its too much on the budget.

Most groceries have discount catalogs placed before entering the store. There are monthly changes on discounted items, so it would be a good idea to cut them out when you are shopping. A couple of these could be found in magazines that could be used when eating out in restaurants to the amusement park or the zoo.

Money is hard to come by especially if both parents have to work. Everyone in the household must always help out and think before buying anything since this is the only method to properly budget the monetary resources available.

Check out the Financial Tips Journal for Financial Advice and Financial Tips