0 Spend

A friend of mine found out he is bankrupt, and never realized he was spending more than he earned. Yes, a stupid thing to do. Never managed his credit cards well. And took out a housing loan and a car loan. Now he can’t pay his mortgages. Does this sound familiar, at least among some people you know? Or is this fellow singularly careless?

The responsible thing to do of you earnings is to manage it well particularly of the amount of bills coming in.

Like most people I also have mortgages, utilities, bills and just anything each month/fortnightly.

This time and age it’s more convenient if you have internet banking and it’s easier to check your bills and bank balances. Not only that there’s no banking fees and the likes with higher savings interest rates than most banks.

For mortgages get also from non banks where they have better deals.

Same with your credit cards get it from non banks to get rid of service and membership fees.

don’t forget the classic cliche: live within your means

when you intend to buy something or even just for groceries check on the latest catalogues buy from cheaper outlets.

if need be buy no frills or generic groceries skip the branded.

for holidays, choose the off peaks and check out better deals from airlines. it’s best to sign in from airline websites so that you’ll get the cheaper rates

Hotels offers also better deals on off peak and get away the holidays peaks. Trust me I’m good at this most hotels offers two plus one or something.

If not get a holiday travel timeshare…. it depends on how often you travel. But this is a good one. For me I have Accor it’s good and it turns out cheap and lots of savings. Try also Wyndham

My personal tip is make friends to those thrifty people. Before buying something expensive or even just trying to replace your tires or batteries. Ask them where they got theres. In this way this saves you from spending petrol in driving around just to look for good price.

Skip eating out, home cook meal is far better.

Good luck

How were you taught? Do you think its the school’s responsiblity or your responsibility to show your kids what the real world is really like?

Quick answer: I learned by watching my mom stress over money. I think it is the parents’ responsibility to show their kids about finances and paying their bills. But the school also needs to step in and make sure kids know the basics. – Not every parent is going to be equipped to show their kids the right way to handle things.

—
I remember in 9th grade we spent a few weeks learning about personal finances and paying your bills. To me, it was one of the easiest, most boring things ever. But 80% of the class struggled.

Here is how I am teaching my daughter:

When she was 2, I started giving her a small allowance of $1/week. When we went to WalMart, if she wanted something that costs more than $1 I would explain to her that if she saves her dollars, she can get it later.

When she was 4 there was a $9 mirror that she wanted. 9 weeks of saving sounded like forever. I introduced the idea that she can do extra chores for extra money. She took about a month to buy her mirror, and 5 years later she still appreciates it.

When she was 5, she started paying more attention to my money. So I showed her several times "this is my paycheck money. We have to save this much to pay for our apartment. And our groceries cost this much. So I am going to put this back in the bank for later and we have this much to do fun stuff with." When we got home, I would put the "fun" money in 2 jars … One was for little things like an icecream cone. The other was for bigger things like a night at the carnival.

Now that she is 9 I still occasionally show her the breakdown of where my money goes. She is expected to save her own money for certain things that she wants. And I take her with me when I certain bills.

At 9 years old, my daughter has put about $140 in the bank so that she can go to Hawaii when she grows up. We have shown her what the trip will probably cost and helped her figure out how much she will need to save per month. She has about $35 in her bedroom for smaller expenses like the box of girlscout cookies she wants and her class trip to a water park.

In a few years, when she gets a steady source of income, I will let her pick something like a cell phone that comes with small monthly payments. As she gets older, she can pay for more of her own stuff.

You like to know about adverse debt levels blight UK consumers personal finances, you can see at http://nice-tip.com/finance/adverse_debt_levels_blight_uk_consumers_personal_finances.html
It tell you detail about it. Hope you like it.

We all I guess need to know how to budget but, short of counting every penny and what it is spent on, I’ d like to know of a system or method that works well in getting control of personal finances.
How often do you need to reconcile the accounts?
I used to struggle making things balance when cheque books were in vogue – would be delighted with any positive ideas.
Many thanks

People who save to become wealthy do not budget. Budgeting does not address the key problem of either reducing your expenses or increasing your income. That is the way to have more money. Excellent categories to examine to reduce expenses are cars and insurance. On cars, you should buy only the most reliable used cars. Consumer reports states that the most reliable cars include Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla and Ford Escort, among others. Buy one of these well used at a price below the book value. You can find the book value on the Blue Book web site and find the peronal seller book value. Then take your time to find one underpriced and buy it. This will save you huge amounts of money long term. And you should shop insurance among a variety of companies for the lowest cost. You should also choose a deductible of $1,000 if you buy a car that has a loan. It is better to buy a well used car with cash and then you only pay for liability insurance. These ideas can save you thousands per year and do much more for saving than a budget. I own these cars myself and save thousands; most people don’t. Then invest your savings in a high paying money market fund or in a way that makes sense to you and let it snowball by compounding the interest.

The other side is to increase your income. This is way better than trying the tedious effort of budgeting your expenditures. Use your current skills to serve other and earn more money. Or learn new skills that are helpful to others. Can you deliver Pizza’s? That is one part time job that pays OK that anyone can do. Of course there are many other jobs which are far more fun and pay bettter but the idea is to increase your income. For example, I have been writing a book on health topic I have studied for years that I expect will be a big seller and will provide a lot more money for my family; you can find something like this that serves others.

If you cannot control your spending you need to deal with the core problem: a lack of discipline. Budgeting will not address this personal problem. You should start fasting to build discipline. Start by skipping one meal and work to fast one day. This will dramatically increase your ability to control yourself; most are way too easy on themselves and so not disciplined enough. I am an incredibly disciplined person from fasting and have both reduced my expenditures and increased my income.
As Zig Ziglar said: "If you are hard on yourself life will be incredibly easier on you."

I had a furniture reupholstering business about nine years ago. I closed it down for health reasons. Since then I have bought a commercial building that does have space for my business if I kick out one of the tenants. Problem is economy is not good, and my personal finances are very tight. Right now I am just making ends meet, while I work at a dead end job that pays only minimum wage.
Here is more information for the last answer.
1. My job is not my only income. My husband has a much better job than me, and I own four rental homes besides the building.
2. The building is not paid off. I generate enough income to pay all the payments, plus a little left over. If I did’nt have the tenant I would still be aqble to pay the bills, but none left over.
3. I would have to buy no equipment. I pretty much still have my old equipment. I still do it on the side. It is very hard to do that. You need a lot of room, and it is a very dirty job.
4. I could probably survive, but it would very tight. I already have jobs that people want me to do. I can’t do them now no room.
I think I need to sell the house I live in, and move into my building. The lose of the two rental units, (an apart ment, and the commercial units), would still be less than my house payment. Thanks for all your answers, it has been very helpful.

I’d like to know how you purchased a commercial building while on a minimum wage job!

There are a few things that don’t add up here, but I’m sure there are some factors you didn’t include in your question.

Is this building paid off, or are you making payments? If you are making payments, does the rental income cover your payment?

What happens to your income stream if you lose the rental income from that tenant?

Do you still have the equipment you used from your old business, or are you going to have to obtain new or used or remanufactured equipment?

From a budgeting stand point, you really didn’t give enough information.

Do you need this tenant’s rent money to survive? if you kick him out, you indirectly have a "free" place of business. That already removes a huge piece of the start up cost.

It’s possible for you to start this business, but in order to answer that question, or at least investigate it thoroughly, I would need a lot more information than you have provided.

looking for an easy to use entry level software manage personal finances in the UK thanks

A spreadsheet. Seriously.

This question was in my Bisness and personal finances book & personally i have no idea how to answer this question. Its a question of opinion….

Certainly some of the economy is based on private enterprise, like privately held companies or individual small business people. But to say our whole economy is private would be very inaccurate, A lot of companies, corporations or whatever their structure may be are publicly held thru stocks. Also many will say we have free enterprise and thats true to a certain extent, but by no means is the USA economy a true free enterprise system, simply look at the companies, farmers, entities receiving subsidies while their competition operates as free enterprise. True free enterprise would be all companies, entities operating on a level playing field.

With graphs, budgets, etc. As well as for small businesses unless I’m better off getting two different programs.

I would say the best program would be to use Excel. Although it’s pretty complicated at first it get easier. It’s capable of many things.
I use it for just about every class.
If you have any questions on how to use it feel free to ask me and I’ll try my best to help. I’ve used to a lot.

I was reading an article about consumer spending through the previous holiday season. They refer to people opening their wallets up more. Why does societal confidence have to be connected with spending?

Consumer confidence refers to people’s opinions about whether the economy in general and their personal finances will be better or worse in the future. When people are feeling optimistic that they have a good financial future, they are willing to spend money. When they think the future may be bad, for example, if they feel that they may lose their job, they save money and don’t spend it.

I need to come up with a dozen or so simple spreadsheet charts to give as a test to my students. What are some simple uses of spreadsheet functions?

So far I have gas mileage, personal finances like rent and bills, store inventory, store sales, and a customer invoice. What are some other things you use Excel to keep track of?
I almost forgot, I have one to track students’ grades, too!

Address lists, labels, trend calculations (using charts), athletic improvement charting, I personally chart furnace and air conditioning usage for the house , Bank book balancing, budgeting, loan calculations, calculations dependant upon criteria (if,and,or), calculations of large amounts of data, personnel functions such as leave credits, pay and hours of work, math problems requiring trigonometry, measurement conversions.