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Personal Budgeting - 10 Easy Tips to Help You Balance Your Budget

If you have completed your budget and found out that it does not balance, give your self a pat on the back. Not only do most people lack the knowledge or desire to balance a budget, they won’t even take the time to make a budget in the first place. If you have found out that you are spending more than you make, you have taken a big first step to correcting this problem. You cannot change what you do not know. If you would like to find out if you are spending more than you make, you can get your free budget spreadsheet found at the link in my signature.

To put it simply there are really only two ways that you can balance a budget. They are:

1. Make more.
2. Spend less.

That’s it. Most of the clients I have dealt with think there is some magic formula to balancing a budget. Nope. In fact, the more complicated you make it, the harder it will be. Keep it simple. If you are spending more than you make, you probably will need to do a blend of both to make it work. Depending on your situation, you might not be able to just spend less and have your budget balance, that because of the two different types of expenses. Read more

How to Manage Your Money

In a recent column entitled “The 3 Ms of Money,” we discussed the principles of financial achievement - managing, multiplying and maintaining your money. Over the coming weeks, we will examine these three pathways to money success in greater detail.

The key to managing your money is knowing what to do with the money that you are already earning, so that you can comfortably pay your bills and work towards attaining your goals. There are four components to successful money management, which, like the ingredients in a recipe, are all essential to producing the perfect end result. Read more

Hanging by a Shoestring - How to Survive on Next to Nothing

An estimated 47% of American households live paycheck to paycheck or very close. It doesn’t look like statistic will get any better soon; in fact it’s likely to get worse as the unemployment numbers rise. Not having much of a disposable income doesn’t mean you have to feel deprived, it just means you have to learn to survive on less fancy foods, repaired clothing, homemade old-fashioned household and beauty products and simple forms of entertainment. If you can learn how to and commit to doing at least these things, living n a shoestring budget won’t seem so much like deprivation.

Cut Your Food Bill
There are many different ways to save money at the supermarket. My favorites are shopping the sales and buying generic. Shopping the sales takes a bit of time and effort but it can really be worth it in the end, especially if you live in a relatively small area like I do. I keep a close eye on the sales flyers and when I see a good deal on something I normally use, I put it on my list and plan to stop by that store. Thankfully due to the area I live in, I am within a twenty minute drive to all the grocery stores I buy from. While this method takes more time than just shopping at one store, I have experienced huge savings because of it. For my family of five -two adults and three children - I spend from $325 to $375 a month on groceries.

Buying generic brands is another way I save money when food shopping. Many generic or store brands are produced by the same companies that make the name brands. But with store brands you aren’t paying for the “name” and the pretty packaging. Furthermore the majority of the time you can’t really taste much of a difference. I’ll admit some generic products aren’t as good as a name brand (I’m particularly picky about my spaghetti sauce) but by watching for sales, stocking up when on sale and buying mostly generic you have the wiggle room to buy a brand name or two.
Buying in bulk is another way many people, myself included, save some cash. If you live close to a food warehouse like Sam’s Club, BJs or Costco, you can purchase large quantities of foods at a discount. This is especially good for meats that you can buy in big packages and then split up for meals. Bulk buying is also good for dry food like flour, sugar, coffee, and canned goods like tuna fish, vegetables and fruits. Read more

Four Effective Credit Repair Tips

Some people lose hope when the banks reject their application for loan or when some other financial institution turns them down for approval. This is not strange. Rather than back down and grieve over the rejection many people have taken a big step of repairing their rating and as a result, they have great scores that financial institutions are willing to do business with them. I have explained four of those tips that can also help you to get your rating in the league that banks love to do business with.

Tip One: Reduce Your Spending Limit
Always ensure that you do not spend more than 20 percent of the amount you have on your credit card. Assume that your limit is 1000 dollars. In this case, your spending limit should not exceed 200 dollars. Even though you are given the freedom to spend up to 1000 dollars, you do not want to do so since the reason you are sticking to the 20 percent spending rule is to increase your FICO score. Read more

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