How to Budget Successfully
Budgeting is like dieting, for it to work you must set realistic goals. The first step is to outline all your relatively fixed monthly bills as discussed in my previous post. Once you know these, go through your monthly bank statement, if you don’t get one in the mail anymore, download it from the bank’s website, and categorize all your expenditures for the past month. What you discover may surprise you.
Some great categories to start with are groceries, eating out, entertainment, charities, clothing, gas, car maintenance, and add others as they fit with your situation. Once you have everything categorized, add up your expenditures for each category. Yes, you really spent that much money last month eating out or shopping at Target for stuff that you can’t even remember two weeks later.
Once you see where your money is going, it is easier to see areas where you can cut back. Maybe instead of eating out 3-4 times a week you could eat out twice, or eat out at less expensive restaurants, or skip the appetizers and alcohol with dinner. These little savings can really add up if you place the money you saved into a special savings account for rainy days. Then, when you feel like splurging, use the money in this account rather than charging up your credit cards.
Christmas without Credit
It’s that time of year again. The weather is turning cold, kids are back in school, Halloween will be here and gone before you know it, and then there will be Christmas.
This year the experts are predicting that there will be less credit available for Christmas, meaning stores won’t be offering as much free financing for the big ticket items. So how can we have a nice Christmas without breaking the bank?
Some people have been diligently buying things all through the years when they find something perfect for that special person in their life and saving it for Christmas. I used to be that person, I used to brag to friends that I finished my Christmas shopping in July. Unfortunately, now I am just like the rest of the world, wondering how I can take care of everyone on a budget.
Well, there is hope. You can still get some great gifts for less than you might think.
My favorite place for shopping is outlet malls. The best outlets I have found are Chelsea Premium Outlets. http://www.premiumoutlets.com/ They have a great variety of stores and you can usually find some good deals. If you want great deals, however, check out their website and become a member of the VIP club. Membership is free and it entitles you to exclusive online coupons at several of the stores as well as a printout for a coupon booklet that you can pick up at the outlet with additional savings for a lot more stores. If you want to save even more, ask the outlet stores you use if they have a loyalty program. With this combination of loyalty program discounts and coupons, I often save an additional 50% off the outlet store price.
Come on, who doesn’t love a Banana Republic dress for $5 or a Victoria Secret lotion for $2. Check it out regularly for the best deals as sales change.
Know What You Owe!
The first step in fixing your finances is to know exactly what you owe and who you owe it to. Make a list of all your monthly bills that are generally fixed such as rent or mortgage, phone bills, internet and cable, electricty, car notes, insurance, etc. Once you have the list, add up all those expenses and subtract them from your monthly take home pay. This is what you have left to cover expenses like your grocery bill, entertainment and eating out, credit card payments, and savings.
If this number is looking extremely small, you may want to consider ways that you can cut your fixed monthly expenses. For example, do you really need a home phone service and a cellphone? Most people can now get by with just a cellphone. More on that later. For now, we are just going to work with the numbers available.
Say after paying all your fixed monthly expenses you have $1,000 left for the month. How much do you owe on your credit cards? What is your monthly minimum payment? How much do your groceries normally run per month? How often do you eat out and what do you spend on an average meal when eating out.
Before you can fix your finances, you have to know what you owe and how you spend your money.
Earn from net!
Yes, you can earn from the internet. But a lot of scams are going on. Simply searchin “earn from net” in google will not yield any results other than introduce you to a scam site. So, the point is do not pay to get paid. There are so many ways to get paid online:
PTC-paid to click
These are sites which pays you to click one of their ads and view the page for a definite time period, eg:30 seconds.
Surveys-Companies are looking for opinions from consumers. Get paid for your opinion.
Paid to write:Get paid to write on blogs, sites e.t.c
In my opinion, PTC sites provide you with steady, but slow income. you can earn 10 cents a day or something. But if you refer 20 persons and they clikc 10 ads per day, you get $2 even if you dont click anything. So a PTC site may give you next to nothing income, or a huge income.
Paid surveys are great, you get at least $2 per survey. But the fact is, surveys are hard to come by. You get 2-3 surveys per month.
Now paid to write is something different. You can get fairly easy money doing so. Yu can write and write and write as long as you can, and you get a decent income too. But there’s no refferal program. So your income is based on your works.
Live as if you’ve already lost
This may not seem like the best of advice but in these tough economic times it may be the best advice. Live as if you’ve already lost, means that you should live your life as if you have lost your job. Living as if you have lost your job may help you get through some tough times.
To live as if you have lost your job you must cut out everything you can. You may be surprised at how much money you can save if you cut back on everything but the essentials. If you can cut everything for three months you may even be able to save up a three month emergency fund. You should also try to pay off as much of your credit card debt as you can.
By paying off as much of your credit card debt as you can then if the worst happens and you do lose your job then you will not have those payments. If you keep your job then you will get to feel the joy of being the only person you know without credit card debt. You could then use the money you were sending to your credit cards to pay down other debt or put it into a retirement account. The same is true of the money you save. You will be proud that you saved what you could if you do lose your job or you will have a nice little nest egg for when the economy does turn around.
Live as if you have already lost and you may find that you really win.
Fix Finances in times of Troubles
Fixing Finances will really hard for someone who is jobless. How will you able to save some ample amount of money were you can’t have a work to get your own money? Though there are some internet sites that offers you to earn money it is still not enough to support your needs. Though it is a good choice to atleast work on those sites to have something for your pocket but a regular and stable job is still the best option to fix your finances.
It is really hard to find a new job nowadays. Specially that economic crisis is everywhere and most company were having cost reduction plans. But there are still some other options available. Some people do try different field of work from what they are usually doing just to find some good job to support their needs while others do accept the jobs less than their qualifications.
Any way you see it will really matter on how you want to fix your problem on money. But what is really important is that you have to make a decision whether you really want to solve your problem on money or not. Cause if you really are willing to solve it there are lots of possible ways to do. Just look around.
Budget to survive
The word budget is probably a household word in today’s hard economic times. I know it is in my house! If you don’t have a budget for your household finances, take a look at your spending and you will see that money is being spent unwisely.
A budget will help one be more aware of where money goes and where it should go. It just makes you be more aware of your finances and if a budget is actually prepared, you would realize that you really do not have the money to spend on what you are currently spending it on, especially if it’s not on any of your household finances or whatever credit card bills you may have.
By not having a budget, you may over spend, not having enough money to pay what needs to be paid (bills). If you pay your bills first and see how much is left over, you will be more realistic as to what you can and cannot do with the extra money (if there is any).
money, money, money…
Money is really getting the intentions of everyone. It was even considered the root of all evil. Money was even becoming one of the most important need of anyone. Of course how one will able to eat, study and live without having any single cent? Aside from the fact that money is being used in our daily expenses there are even people says that money will even decide your fate and happiness. No matter what someone believes in about money. Certainly, money is really essential to daily life. No one will ever survive in this kind of material world without having money. Money is even the reasons why online money making sites were evolving and beginning to conquer the mind of everyone. But of all this things one will always crave to earn and have money every minute and every second because of the growing prices of commodities specially if one will not learn how to save little of his income.
Hosting a party within the Budget
I am planning to have a baby shower this coming December. I will have 20 to 30 guests. My theme is blue and brown color. My husband plan to give me 250dollars as a budget for my shower party. But I want to spend only half the amount. But how am I gonna do that? Plan wisely. Make a list of what to do and list the name of the suppliers. Do canvassing and have a quotations on each suppliers will do. Be creative and include customize decorations and invitations as well. In invitations, you can create your own or make a design using computer software and have it print. Another suggestions is to send invites via email to your friends who live far away from you. It can save courier cost or transportation fare if you plan to send it personally. For foods, you can create unconventional menu. Just make sure that it is your speacialty or the recipe is already tested. For decorations, you can buy balloons at cheaper price. Buy also the machine used to inflate the balloon, I think it’s only cost less than 2dollars. You can re-used them on your next party in the future. Making a party is fun. In this time of crisis, we can still enjoy it by planning it wisely.
System in budgeting
In order to come up with a proper budgeting scheme, you need to include to have a system in implementing it. Proper organization is the key. Make a list to be organize. List down the necessities like groceries and utilities. This is the important things that you should prioritize first. Next is buying new clothes and shoes. If there’s a budget in buying new things but not that important, then go on. This can be gadgets or vices. But make sure to include in the list the extra for emergencies. We’ll never know when this will happen.Just be ready to have it so that there will be no problem when that time comes. When you have this system it will be easier for you to divide your finances. You can device your own at your own convenience but always allot something for emergency purposes.