The Importance of a Good Financial Education

The Importance of a Good Financial Education

Most children have a way of living up to expectations, and if you expect your child to make responsible, intelligent decisions, the chances are good that he or she will not let you down. For instance, you probably want your children to grow up to be responsible consumers so that they do not spend their lives floundering in debt, particularly if you are afraid that you may end up footing the bill for their monetary mishaps.

Take Charge of Your Children’s Financial Education

It is one thing to expect the best for your children and another to actually provide them with the tools to succeed. If you want your children to grow up to be fiscally responsible adults, you are going to have to take charge of their financial educations. Schools may teach children how to count money and offer courses on how to balance a bank account, but they don’t teach kids much about how to shop wisely.

For instance, your kids will probably never hear their teacher advising them to use Nike coupons for their next athletic footwear purchase. It’s up to you to impart your smart shopping skills to your children rather than expecting the schools to do so for you.   [Read more...]

Seven Financial Tips That Could Help You to Save Money

In addition to thinking about how to adjust your daily spending, if you really want to conserve funds it makes sense to reconsider the way that you approach saving, budgeting and certain necessary expenses. These six helpful tips can help you to get into the right frame of mind for saving money.

1) Set goals:
Take a moment to give some serious thought to the main reasons why you want to save money. For example, perhaps you want to move house, have a new baby, or take an important trip. Once you have located your most important reasons for saving money, write them all down. Next, take a note of how much cash you would ideally need to save in order to accomplish all of of these goals, and sketch out some rough time frames that you think accurately reflect how long it will take you to meet each goal. Keeping this list in a readily accessible place may help to keep you motivated when it comes to conserving funds.

2) Consider your credit cards:
Depending on the way in which you currently use credit cards, you might find that you can save money if you stop using them at all. Using cash for all of your payments can help you to focus on staying within your budget, keeping you aware of when you are running low on funds. If you do not use credit cards, you may be less likely to attempt to spend money that you do not actually have.

3) Record all your expenses:
Taking a detached look at your finances may help you to save money by giving you a clearer perspective on where you stand. To see whether this helps you, experiment with keeping a record of all of your expenses for at least several weeks. Try to be as accurate as possible, even when it comes to small or unexpected purchases. At the end of each week, review what you have spent and try to figure out what you could cut out or cut down during the next week. If you calculate roughly how much each possible cut might end up saving you in the upcoming year, this may encourage you to make the most useful sacrifices.

4) Take a closer look at your insurance:
While your insurance company may have offered you a good deal at the time, you might find that you can save money by switching now. Look up some phone numbers and call them in order to confirm that your current insurance offers you the best deal for the best price.

5) Do your homework if you need to obtain additional finances:

Regardless of whether this is a loan you need for a new business venture of if it is simply to help with some kind of unexpected emergency payment it is always worth your while to do some proper research. Do some research on the web to find the best deal – There are literally hundreds of independent companies competing for your business, one example being wonga.com payday loans. The website makes it easy to work out what exactly you’ll be paying in total, so do a bit of leg work, shop around and you will find the most competitive deal!

6) Think about moving money to a savings account every time you get paid:
Instead of only saving the money that is left at the end of the month, why not move a set amount to a savings account as soon as you get paid? This may help you to save more in the long run by marking this money as ‘off limits’ and making you more likely to save the same amount of cash each month. You can decide on a reasonable amount to save based on how much you expect to spend on necessities, and you can even set up an automatic transfer that moves this amount from your main account to your savings account on a particular day of the month.

7) Stay positive:
Finally, if you accidentally deviate from your budget, or if you fail to save quite as much as you planned, do not give up! Instead, just take a deep breath and try a little harder next month.

I Bought Individual Health Insurance


(Photo Credit)

My breathing just got short and winded just typing the title because I want to cry about the cost of it. However, hearing of way too many health scares among friends and family the last year or two, I know health insurance is a necessity. A visit to my doctor would be $90 (that is with their paying cash “discount”) and that includes nothing else. So, after months of “living on the edge” without out and debating the extra large dent in my budget, I finally bit the bullet and bought it.

The big downfall to living in New England is how expensive things can be and health insurance is no exception. I compared what I would pay in other states I have lived and I could get individual health insurance considerably cheaper. My options here in New Hampshire started out at $205 and went as high as about $400 per month. The $205 was a joke. It covered NOTHING until the deductible was met. The deductible was $12,000 (no typo there)! I thought to myself, I would almost be better off saving $205 every month toward medical expenses. Of course, the major flaw in that theory is what if something goes wrong and I have a major medical emergency. [Read more...]

Savings Saturday-February Financial Goal Update

It is time for my February financial goal update. Due to my tax return this is a pretty good one. I will say I am not a big advocate of tax returns, but my situation the last few years has been a bit wacky. So anyhow, here it goes:

Credit card debt started out at $1452 (My original post stated $1352, that was a typo) and is now at $788. I went from debt on two cards down to one. I will now snowball the other. I was paying $50 a month on card 1 (minimum plus $25 extra) and $30 on the one I still owe on. However, I also had debt from my 2010 tax return. The IRS is paid off too (I had an odd circumstance from some retirement funds and thus that $900 bill was a one time deal). I was paying the IRS $50 a month so now I have a total of $160 to plop on the credit card each month. Five months (if I am lucky it will be less) and that nuisance is gone!

My other monthly update is my online income. I said to be comfortable, I needed to make $1200 (I have other income as well) online. February total=$1273 and take into account I don’t push affiliates or use adsense.  With other regular work that is in the planning stages but should go through (cross you fingers for me), I should increase my regular online income another $600-$650 a month.

Next month I will add in my quarterly updates as well (savings although not respectable yet in my opinion isn’t super embarrassing any longer). I feel like a turtle, but I hope to look back in a few months and say “Wow!” to all the progress I have made. The important thing is to move forward. Are you making progress on your financial goals?

 

Savings Saturday-January Financial Goal Update

On the last Saturday in December I posted my financial goals for 2013 and so here is my first monthly update. For the monthly update I am including credit card debt and online income.

Credit card debt-Was $1352 and now it is $1292-So far, so good

Online income-I said I need to make $1200 and my goal going forward is $1800. Well, I came out with $859.38-Total fail….or not? First, it was the second week of January I took on a regular writing gig. I also added to that gig this week so that alone will make February a better month. Also, due to the learning curve with that I did a lot less mystery shopping and toned down other freelancing. Also, due to my husband working less hours, I tutored more leaving less time to write. I fully expect to make at least the $1200 in February.

January in general is rough with less work for husband (that has picked back up) and car registrations. Cross your fingers there will be no major hiccups in February so I can not only get these goals back on track, but my emergency fund savings as well!