How to help yourself in a bad economic climate
All you hear in the news lately are the words “bailout” and “economic crisis” and rumors of another depression are whispered in corners. Whether you think things are that bad or whether you think we will come out of it in the next few months you should still help yourself by preparing your own finances to weather whatever storm may come.
If you do not have an emergency fund set aside then work on that immediately. Having even a few hundred dollars saved can be a big help if your car breaks down or you get laid off. It is best to have, at the very least, three months income saved but when you are just beginning to save this can seem impossible. If you could get two hundred in an account this could at least pay for food and gas for a week or two as you search for another job or could either pay to have your car fixed or make a big dent in how much it will cost to fix it.
Pay down as much of your credit card debt as you can. You do not want to have to worry about minimum payments if your finances take a stumble and you may need that credit to live off of if you lose your job.
Stock up on food. Keep at least several weeks of food available so if something happens you do not have to worry about how you will eat.
Keep at least five gallons of gas in your garage. This way if you are short on cash one week you can at least get to and from work for a few days.
Begin an exercise program and a healthy eating program. The healthier you are the less likely you will have to spend money on health care.
Go through your home and get rid of what you don’t need. Have a garage sale and put the money into your emergency fund. If there are two drivers in your home and you have three cars then sell one. If you can get by on one car and you have two then sell one.
Do not get extra credit at this time. Pay off what you have do not add to it.
Look into freelance work to hold you over in case you lose your full time job.
Financial Disaster
So if you are making minimum-wage as a cashier and at the end of the day, your drawer is missing $20, you probably get fired, because losing a twenty is either stealing or incompetence. But if you’re making a huge salary as a CFO, and large amounts of money disappear from your bank, the government will come in with lots of money to help you out!
Via Simpson’s Paradox — Economics According to Meg
Internet money
It was really proven that having a double job does really help in finances. Sometimes people not only have a double jobs but they even worked heavily like there was no tomorrow. They have shifting schedules and when the time of rest comes they do posting and clicking on the internet to help add some small amounts on their accounts.
Really internet does becomes a very helpful tools to everyone. It does not only help us connected to our loved ones but also it is now a new source of income. All we need is have some research on some sites that will really help us to have extra money on our extra little time and viola! Money is not that far.
Life Insurance, Steady way to build wealth
Life insurance is one of ways to create steady wealth. Originally, life insurance is for protection. It is not an investment tool. Now days people prefer to buy life insurance. Because it gives not only protection but also helps you to create wealth to meet your financial needs.
Proceeds from life are useful to pay off your mortgage. It can be also used to pay your credit cards debts. Thus, if you want immediate money and you have life insurance policy, you can get loan on your policy. It avoids you to go for fast loan or cash advance.
Life insurance can create financial estate to your dependents. If you die and your paychecks stops, your dependents will not have enough resources to meet their daily financial needs. At this time life insurance proceeds can be there to help them. Your dependants will pay your debts.
In this way life insurance can be useful in shortage money. Just you need to keep your policy in-force.
Gift giving and staying out of debt
Birthdays and holidays can make it difficult when you are either broke, trying to get out of debt, or both. We had a birthday party for a friends child to attend to tonight. An adult friend is easier, we just don’t exchange gifts, but for a child you feel as if you have to bring something and we wanted to but we also just racked up one thousand dollars on our home depot card during our remodel, have a new house payment we didn’t have before and spent two hundred dollars we didn’t have on a couch last night (we have no living room furniture and our backs could no longer take the lawn chairs). We still wanted to buy him something fun.
So what did we do? We spent thirty dollars we didn’t have on two small gifts from Toys ‘R’ Us. This got me to thinking about what we could have done differently. We have a “gift fund” in our budget but the money never actually makes it there so instead of fighting it I should find something else that works.
A little planning would have helped. We have known about this for a week so I could have used some of the cheap gift bags I pick up regularly that cost about fifty cents as opposed to leaving it to the last minute, not looking for the cheap gift bags I already own and then spending four dollars on one in the checkout line. We also were in a hurry because we were late (something very rare for us) so we couldn’t even look for something on sale or even run to Wal-mart. We had to hit the closest store and the closest aisles instead.
He did love our gifts, which always make you feel good but not as good as spending less than thirty bucks would have felt. We would have saved at least a little money if we had just planned the event a little better.
Walk and save
Walking has been proven the best way to exercise. With the high prices of the gasoline and even the price of fare I think walking will help us to cut the expenses and even become fit. I think if we are going in a place just nearby or it is not that far and we can walk or just take a bike why not do it instead of paying for gasoline and fare. In that way we can save the little money that we are about to pay for the fare and gasoline.
Save money on meals
If you spend one hundred dollars a week on average on all of your meals, including eating out and at home, and you could cut that amount then the money you save could go towards your debt. Now, I know that one hundred dollars may seem like nothing to quite a few of you but it is possible for a family of four to eat in comfort and perhaps even eat healthier than they normally do.
So, let’s just pretend you spend one hundred dollars a week and you can adjust the idea to what you actually spend. If you could only spend $75 a week save the other $25 then you would have an extra $100 a month to go towards your debt. It may seem difficult but it is not that hard to cut back on the cost of the food you eat for a week. Many people could pay off great amounts of debt just by eating at home and not eating out.
You could also shop at a discount grocer such as Aldi’s instead of hitting the locally owned, and often higher priced, grocery store on the corner. Even a trip to Wal-mart often can cost twenty to thirty dollars more than what you may spend for the same amount at an Aldi’s type grocery store.
Another way to save money on meals is to share a meal when you go out and cut out the appetizers and alcoholic drinks. This alone can turn a fifty dollar meal into a ten dollar meal and you still get to go out and have a good time. Often, my friends and I will have an appetizer at home before going out so that we do not order as much at the restaurant.
Try saving money on your meals for just one month and see how much extra you have to send to your credit card debt!
Speaking to your partner about debt
Years ago the hubby and I each had our own credit cards and credit lines. We were young, making decent money and living in the cheapest places we could find and driving the cheapest cars we could keep on the road. Eventually life caught up with us. Student loans became due, our cars were headed to the scrap yard and we needed to live in a real home. This was when I sat down and went through our finances. The total amount I had circled at the bottom of the list of debts blew me away. It was more than the two of us made in a year. I knew I had to discuss this with my partner but I also knew it had to be done in the right way. Some people get angry when discussing debt, others shut down, some cry, and others, like my hubby, become lost. They have no idea how to fix it and it seems overwhelming.
I chose a night when there were no activities and no friends coming over. I also waited until after dinner but before the tv got turned on for the night so I would have his full attention. Then I calmly explained how far in debt we were, how no one person was to blame more than the other (even though he already had a few cards in collection), and I explained how it was going to take the both of us to work our way out of the mess we had put ourselves in. We then spoke about how our finances were going to work in the future. This was the time we decided it would be best if I took over both my finances and his. It was not an easy talk to have, nor were the many follow up talks afterwards but we now have very little credit card debt as well as having a sound financial plan for the future.
Credit Cards and Freelancing
An article called How a Credit Card Makes Freelancers Bawl on how to avoid common problems with credit cards, accounting and freelancing.
Meet Joe, a freelance writer with a decent portfolio containing a mix of print and online articles. He loves to skydive and play tennis. Joe has one credit card for both personal and business purchases. After all, freelance writing started out as a side venture that eventually grew big enough that he could quit his corporate job for the freelance life.In the beginning, the credit card bill didn’t faze him. He didn’t have many business purchases being a fledgling freelance writer on the side. Now that he’s gone big time — managing his credit card and its bill becomes a hassle.
Highlight here, highlight there, everywhere a highlight
When he receives the bill, he has to study the items to figure out what they are. After all, that printer he bought from Printers R Us shows up on the credit card as Dominate Electronics World, the parent company. So he has to make the connection between the order from Printers R Us and the parent company by comparing the purchase price.
He takes out his green and yellow highlighters. He highlights personal purchases in yellow and business purchases in green. After all, green means money and business brings in the dough. Whoops, he highlighted a personal purchase in green and scribbles notes to fix that. By the time he finishes with his bill, it looks battered and worn.
The article talks about all the reasons it’s good to have a separate account for business and personal expenses, which seems to run counter to the basic idea that fewer credit cards is better. Worth checking out!
Via How a Credit Card Makes Freelancers Bawl | Freelance Writing Jobs
Tips to save money using the gas pump
We all know the problem of the gasoline price, the fuel has increasing a lot in spite that right now the price has decreased a little. Following some tips to save money when you have to refill your car, moto, truck…
- you have to fill during morning time instead of the afternoon or night time. More the temperature is colder, more the density of the petrol is low so you can fill more. In the morning the temperature is very low and in the afternoon it is very high.
- normally in some station, the gas pump has 3 kinds of speed from slow to very quick, you have to use always the slower speed. You will minimize the steams created during the filling. Indeed if you fill your car with high speed, a high percentage of the liquid will be change to steam.
- fill your car when it is half of the fuel. More the tank is full, less air it has and on this way, the fuel will evaporate less quicker.
- if you see an oil tanker refilling the station, go to an other oil station (if you can of course) because when you are going to fill you car, you will put not only the fuel but also all kind of dirty.