Do-It-Yourself Financial Planning

The fight for financial freedom isn't fair. No matter what kind of spin you try to put on it, the path to comfortable living seems either impossible or too long to attempt. Many people these days are spending copious amounts of money going to see professional financial planners for advice on how to get their money situation under control. But let's be honest, while a financial planner can show you how to prioritize your spending and how to go about consolidating your debt, surely there must be a way to plan your finances that doesn't cost you visits to a professional? This article has been written to open some people's eyes to the fact that it is possible to properly plan your finances from the comfort of your own home.

The main aim when planning your finances is to make everything as simple as possible. There is nothing worse than sinking so far into depression that you can't see a way out. Whether you are in debt and looking to get out of it of if you are simply looking for a way to keep a little more spending money aside each month, the simpler you make your planning the better the result you will get. From the beginning, you need to be realistic. I'll start with the example of a single income situation, firstly you need to calculate what your net pay is per month. If you're self employed or not on a regular pay, always calculate the worst-case-scenario, what is the lowest you might get paid. Then go through your monthly bills and write down the ones that are a fixed amount. Do the same for all other bills but use the worst-case-scenario again, what is your estimation of the most that those bills might be. Add everything up and subtract it from your net income total.

Next onto the incidental expenses you might run into on a monthly basis. These might include petrol, car upkeep, public transport fares, food etc. make a list of all the little expenses you might need money for in a month. Even things that you're not sure you might need to buy. Don't add general spending money to the list, be specific. Always add more to the totals if you're not sure as you can fine tune it later. Again, subtract your total from the money left over from your bills. Don't worry if you've gone into the negative figures here, we can fix it.

Once you've got your expenses total in front of you, obviously any money that is left over is your profit for the month. In the event that you have nothing left or have gone into the minus figures, the next step is to minimize your expenses. Pretty straight forward, huh? Any incidental expenses that you might not need, remove them. And any expenses you know you will have, like food and petrol for example, really get down to the lowest spend on them. How much do you really need to spend on them? Your aim should be to save at least $50 per month after spending money. All that extra builds up and gives you a nice petty cash at the end of a few months.

If you are in a multiple-income situation, the same process applies. You need to start building up that petty cash tin. There will always be unexpected expenses, everyone knows that. In truth, the basis of comfortable living is really the knowledge that you can afford to pay for something unexpected.

To finish, all of this can be done on a piece of paper if you want to invest a little time, or you can lay it all out on an Excel spreadsheet. The way that saves the most time is to use a Financial Planning software program, you enter the numbers and the program gives you an automatic monthly planner. Whatever way you choose to go, always remember to keep it as simple as possible. When you're following a plan, the pressure on you will decrease.

The Safest Way To Manage Credit Card Account

The society we live in today makes it more and more difficult to manage without a credit card account. We are told that it is the safest way to buy things over the internet or abroad as purchases are often covered by insurance. We can use it to manage our budgets as there are several weeks between buying the goods and being charged interest on our purchases.

We are constantly bombarded with advertisements telling us that one particular credit card account is better than another. The number of different cards available is bewildering. All of them have benefits and, if they are used wisely they are a convenient addition to your banking facilities.

I say "wisely" with caution. It is easy to forget how much you are spending on a creditcard and then find that you can't pay the whole of the sum back when the statement comes in. The trouble is, the more you get into debt, the more difficult it is to pay back, what with interest and card protection sums on top of the balance. Some creditcard accounts make an annual charge just for using them. Therefore, the best thing to do is to pay it back as quickly as you can.

If you are organised enough, find a card that works best for you. Some give cashback when you buy goods or, if you travel a lot, they will give you air miles. Just like anything else, the companies operating the creditcard accounts are trying to entice you to purchase using their card - so make it work for you! It is important to check out the additional charges too, as well as the rate of interest. There isn't much point in using your credit card and paying it off completely when the statement arrives only to find that they charge you additional sums just for the privilege. That means you are paying more for goods that you could probably have paid for straight away.

If you buy goods online regularly, it might be a good idea to find a credit card account that offers an online fraud guarantee. This protects you from unauthorised charges being made against your card as a result of using your card online. With the reported increase in this type of crime, you could find that having this protection is very worthwhile.

With vendors now finding it easier and easier to set themselves up with credit card processing accounts you can be sure that you are going to need a credit card account for some time to come.

Guide To Improve Money Management For Women

Women are indulged in various activities such as home making, caring children and spouse, caring for the elders etc. Women often experience a great disruption in earnings in their life as they have to take career breaks for reasons such as relocation due to marriage, to raise children or due to some other family conditions.

Taking care of the above factors, women need to have a holistic financial plan, in order to make good out of the time lost in their career breaks . If a woman needs to be empowered, she should not need anyone to tell you how she lives her life or spends her money.Here are a few money management tips which will help women manage their finances better.

Take care of your own money. In line with balancing your own cheque book, let's also understand that you need not to hand over the money management function to anybody else. Regardless of what others say, you should do it yourself. You can do the money sums. Trust yourself on this score.

Save for yourself first. We often hear about women being neglected, abandoned and cheated of their money, by those who they cared for. Women have to start caring for themselves first. This includes saving for your retirement rather than sponsoring your partner or for children's studies. Of course the family unit is important, but so are you.

Do not undervalue yourself. It means to value yourself for things such as your career prospects, status in the community or family. If are a stay at home mom then work out a salary and pay structure for this. Understand that you have value as a person and worker. If you work for yourself keep in mind, to take care of the value of services you are providing to your clients.

Learn about finances. Do not allow yourself to feel embarrassed if you do not have any skills in investments, money management or retirement funds. There are no inherent brilliant talents required to work out on it. Do not allow investment brokers or personal finance expert's talk down to you. Always try to deal with people who will explain in plain and easy language what is going on.

Protect your assets. Keep your assets in your name. Protect them when and where necessary by contracts. In the same way don't be careless with your assets when starting a business and especially if you have a partner or terminating a relationship with partners.

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The Best Way For Children To Earn Money

As soon as our children can understand what money is, they are old enough to start to earn money. There are numerous ways for how our child can make money. Even the simplest tasks can bring in money for a child but remember to focus your efforts on helping your child pick up entrepreneurial and money skills rather than just the money itself.

Financial literacy training and entrepreneurial development will help your child make money and most importantly keep the money they earn. Follow the simple tips below and discover how our child can make money and get it working in their favor.

1) Help your children set some financial goals. Work with them and help them set short term and long term goals. The long term goals you may need to guide them and give them examples of what that would mean to their life. Short term goals should be easy to set. Have them pick something they want to save for that they can achieve in 6 months to a year. Cut out a picture and post it on their piggy bank. This will help them make the connection between money and having the things they want in life.

2) Give your children the opportunity to earn an allowance for doing extra work around the house. As they earn money then you can begin to teach them about the importance of saving money. Get their bank account open immediately and let them start to see the little bit of interest they earn grow over time.

3) It is important when we show how kids can make money we don't focus on short term gains. Teach them the power of compounding interest and enroll them in a financial literacy class at a young age. This not only educates them but also provides them needed motivation to continue to save on a regular basis.

4) Support them and encourage entrepreneurial endeavors. There are old school ways that kids can make money like by having bake sales, baby sitting, delivering newspapers or a lemonade stand. Now days we can also teach our kids how to leverage the power of the internet and begin to market items on eBay or other sites. They can also market other products they find online with no out of pocket investment. This affiliate marketing gives them all the tools they need and the experience of starting their own business. One world of caution though - closely monitor their online activity but encourage them to start a business and take a financial literacy class.

5) Encourage your teenager to get a job or start their own business so they can start earning. What they do to earn money is not important in itself. Working is the key to getting your child on the road to financial independence.

There are a multitude of ways children can earn money. With a little creativity, motivation and financial literacy training you will find your children making and keeping their money.

Tips To Make Extra Money

There are a many tips to make extra money. Of course you may not have the knowledge, training or experience to succeed with some of them. Or you may not have enough money to take advantage of some opportunities.

Use Your Knowledge of Values

All of us have some idea of what some things should cost, but we are all most familiar with prices in one area or another. Identify those areas where you are best at determining the value of things. This is where the profit opportunity is.

For example, a neighbour of mine could say what a car would sell for within a few hundred dollars. So when he saw a used car for sale and knew it would bring $3,000 after a bit of cleaning, he would offer $1,500 for it. If the answer was no, he quickly moved on until he found a seller ready to get rid of a vehicle cheap. Then he spent an hour or two cleaning up the car and selling it for decent profit.

The principle is what matters here. You don't need to know about cars. Ask yourself what can you put a price on and find a buyer for, and you have a potential source of extra money. One man I knew regularly bought used restaurant equipment for half of what it could be sold for. Engagement rings, dogs, and other things are "turned" for a profit in this way as well.

If you have no cash to invest, you can use credit card advances to do this. If you can make $1000 buying and reselling a coin collection, does $100 in fees and interest matter? Or you can find a partner to finance the deals at first. I have a friend who knows pickup trucks but rarely has cash saved. If he finds a truck for $2,000 that will sell for $4,500, he comes to me. I put up the money for half of the profit and we both do well.

Rent Rooms in Your Home

When I was younger I had a mobile home on a small lot. I paid off the mortgage, so my expenses were low, but I wanted to make some extra money as well, so I rented the spare bedrooms. The two rooms provided over $7,000 extra income annually, and I had decent renters. Having another person in the house adds little to the utilities, so the rent collected is almost all profit.

Make More Money In Your Business

If you have a business, why not mine your customer list for treasure. For example, if you run a window-cleaning business, you can call all previous customers in a certain area and offer a discount if they would like their windows cleaned the following week. Keeping it to one area makes it efficient so you can still make a decent profit while offering a lower price.

If you have a mailing list of your customers you can offer to present them with an offer from a non-competing business, for a fee or commission. Even customers that you have lost can be a profit source. Just introduce them to a competitor who can better serve their needs, again for a fee.

Sell Affiliate Products

When people visit my backpacking web site they sometimes click on the links I have put there and buy a tent or a sleeping bag. When that happens I get paid commission of about 7%. I just write about a subject that interests me, people come to read my pages, and they sometimes buy products that I link to. It is an example of basic affiliate marketing. Commissions range as high as 75% on some products, by the way, and you can start with a free blog on any topic of interest to you.

Personal Loans For Poor Credit - Tips To Follow

There are so many things that you need to think about or prepare when it comes to personal loans for poor credit. Sometimes, it can be an advantage for you to actually get a loan like this but there are also situations when this can backfire as well. This is why it is important that you get all the information that you can on personal loans as well as the lenders that are allowing them to happen. This way, you will not make the mistake of getting deeper in debt or ruining your credit score even further.

Know The Amount Borrowed

The first thing that you need to know is how much you are going to borrow from a lender. Think wisely about how much you will need from a lender, whether it is a secured loan or an unsecured one. Of course, you might think that borrowing more is better but it really is not. Make sure that you borrow a minimal amount so that you can make sure to make the payments on time and in the right amounts as well. Bigger amounts can get you in bigger trouble in the long run.

Know The Interest Rates

Rates can vary from lender to lender so it is important that you get to know what the base rate really is. Sometimes there is a standard but it's always safe to ask what the interest rates are between lenders. The kind of personal loans for poor credit that you need to look for are the ones with the lowest annual percentage rate or APR. Why? Because the rates will be fixed no matter how high interest rates are.


Key Is Your Credit History

Lenders will first look at your credit history so you need to make sure that prior to your loan, you are already making certain payments on time. Late payments just make your credit score worse so make sure to make payments on time so that you can qualify for personal loans with poor credit. You will have secured and unsecured options since you have poor credit already but this does not mean that you can make your situation worse by worsening your credit history. In short, make your minimum payments on time.

Get Insurance

This cannot be stressed further. You need to get loan insurance that will cover your monthlies. They can be expensive and have you paying more in the long run but you never know when you will become incapable of paying off your debts. This is what the insurance is good for. In case you are not able to pay due to illness or whatever act it is that will stop you from paying off your loan.