Cheap Living Tips

Budgeting has long been hailed as a key to successful personal financial management, and rightfully so. Those who actively budget their income each month tend to make smarter financial decisions. In this article, we are going to discuss why a budget is an essential part of achieving true financial freedom, and how to practically establish one.

jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Why Do We Need It?

Keeping a budget is not easy. It requires discipline and persistence, and if a person is not easily amused by numbers and detail, then committing to consistently tracking a budget can be quite a foreboding task. That is why it is very important that a person first understand why it is essential to keep a budget.

It’s easy to write out financial goals. It’s easy to say, “I want to have $50,000 saved up in 3 years.” The difficult part is walking out the process to achieve the goal, and that is where the power of budgeting comes in. First of all, let’s use a metaphorical example, and let’s assume that you are going to travel to Florida for vacation.

Therefore, you pull out the Atlas, and you bring out the map of the United States. You look in Florida, and you find Orlando, which is going to be your vacation destination. How do you get to Orlando? Actually, let’s rephrase that question. What’s the first thing you need to do in order to find out how to get to Orlando? Well, the answer is…you need to know where you are currently located. And that is the power of budgeting.

If you have a financial goal of saving up $50,000 in 3 years, or saving a certain amount of money for retirement, you cannot make real headway toward that goal unless you know where you currently are, and budgeting is the financial equivalent of “finding out where you really are.” Furthermore, once you begin budgeting and identify where you are, your ongoing monthly budgeting will also keep you on the path toward your ultimate financial goal.

How Do We Do It?

Setting up a budget is easy. When broken down into its most basic elements, budgeting simply consists of tracking two things: income and expenses. A simple way to establish a basic monthly budget is to follow these steps: (fill out in monthly figures)

1. List out all of your fixed expenses – mortgage, car payment, debt payment, cable, internet, etc

2. List out all of your variable expenses – these are things you have to buy every month, but the amount can vary (gas, food, etc)

3. List out your income

Now once you finish these three steps, add up the figures from step 1 and step 2. The total must be lower than step 3. If it is not, that means you are in the negative each month, and that is dangerous. In that case, serious lifestyle changes must be considered. However, assuming that steps 1 and 2 equal less than step 3, you now know how much net income you have each month. Once you have your budget established, you can look into diversifieng your portfolio with some investments like stock trading or forex trading. Keep in mind, these markets carry a significant amount of risk, and should not be a part of your initial savings plan.

Now, you can begin to budget what you will do with that net income. True financial freedom consists of being free from all bad debts including credit cards and other revolving debt. Thus, the first thing you may want to do with extra net income is to simply funnel that cash toward paying down bad debts. This will not be enjoyable in the near term, but in the long term it will lead to great gains, both financially and emotionally.

The Truth About...

To be perfectly honest I haven’t had to face this dilemma in several decades but this morning I came across a “How To” article on this subject and it looks to me like the authors have covered the topic very well.  Therefore I would like to pass this on to all of you here at Cheaper Living Tips.

The writers presume that you have an income of roughly $1000 a month after taxes.  With that some to work with they outline an excellent guide for budgeting those funds to get by.

$500 (or less for rent & utilities)
$200 Food & household necessities (toiletries etc)
$100 Leisure
$30 Cell phone or Cable (pay as you go or drop entirely)
$170 (balance) Medical insurance or save for emergencies

Read the full article “How To Live On Minimum Wage” to get more tips on how to actually manage within these parameters.

By Trevor Johnson

A person who believes that they need all the latest gadgets may ask, how do I control my spending? Well the first thing that you must do is to prioritize. Take a serious inventory of where your money is actually going.

Every time you open a newspaper, log on to the Internet or turn on the TV set, you read or hear about some new gadget that is available. The advertisement suggests that you just cannot live without it. That if you don’t get it, you are somehow inferior. All of these advertisements suggest that you need more. They suggest that you need something bigger, better, newer.

Take your cell phone for example, since you started using a cell phone, how many have you actually purchased? And why? Because something newer and supposedly better became available. Now your cell phone can be used to take photographs, movies, and maybe by next year you can program it to cook dinner. If you already had cell phone, did you stop and ask yourself before your purchase if you really needed a new one? Or were you just convinced by the advertising that if you did not get a new one, you would somehow be falling behind the times?

It is all well and good to try out new gadgets, or replace old ones which have become worn out, however, this requires thought and planning. If you really want to control your spending you must plan on and question every purchase. You absolutely must give yourself a budget, and stick to it. This budget should include investment and savings as well as spending.

When you are inclined to buy the latest “toy” that you see or hear about, remind yourself that it won’t be long before this item also becomes “obsolete”. if you choose to make this purchase anyway, you may as well just give your money away as soon as you get it. Why not save for? Why not wait a year or two until the price comes down?

“Saving money for a rainy day”, may sound cliché, however, rainy days, arrive when we least expect them. Remember, when this happens you will need money to purchase an umbrella.

To get more help to control your spending just click here.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Trevor_Johnson
http://EzineArticles.com/?With-All-the-Wonderful-New-Gadgets-Available-How-Do-I-Control-My-Spending?&id=2269974

Financial Mistakes to Learn From

By Martin Lukac

In this day and age, there really shouldn’t be any reason to make certain financial mistakes. Do a search of the internet and you will find that there are thousands of articles out there that warn you of the pitfalls of certain choices. Advice for living a financially stable life is everywhere. What are you waiting for?

Here are the most common mistakes that I’ve seen people make. I’ve even made a few of them myself. These are the financial mistakes that you can learn from. You’ve probably made a few of them yourself, they are very common.

Mistake #1: Using that little plastic card to get what you want.

We’ll just start off with the number one mistake out there. This is probably the most common mistake in the country. Almost every person in the US today has a credit card. It is almost like a right of passage when you turn eighteen. There are even people out there that aren’t eighteen yet that have them.

Credit card debt is the fastest way to ruin your finances. It is easy to acquire and difficult to pay off. The minimum balance doesn’t pay off enough of your outstanding balance to help you very much. You will be paying on your balances for decades. Even a $500 balance can take you over a decade to pay off if you simply make the minimum payment.

Add in the interest rate, which rarely goes down. If you miss a payment, you will really be paying the bank. Thirty percent interest is common on a credit card once a payment has been missed. And you only have to miss that payment by a day — which can happen in the mail or processing if you don’t plan ahead well enough.

Mistake #2: Buying more home than you can afford.

With the real estate market in the state it is today, many people are regretting their housing decisions. Adjustable rate mortgages are acceptable loan products for some people. But only if they can afford the maximum rate that the loan can hit if interest rates go up. Too many people only consider that introductory rate. They stretch and purchase as much as they can afford. Then, when rates go up and their rate adjusts, they can’t afford the payment. Add that to a slowing housing market, and you may have a foreclosure on your hands.

If you are going to buy a home, make sure that you purchase what you can afford. Take out a fixed-rate mortgage so that you know what your payments will be. If rates go drastically down in the next couple of years, you can always refinance. If rates go up, you are protected. Try to aim for a 15-year mortgage over a 30-year. It will save you hundreds of thousands in interest. But if you can’t do it, a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is an acceptable loan choice for the purchase of a home.

Mistake #3: Not controlling your money.

Too many people live paycheck to paycheck. They have no savings. They have no retirement plan. They have nothing to back them up in the case of an emergency. They have no control over their money.

You have to take control of your finances if you want to retire someday. You have to learn how to budget, save, invest and spend. All it takes is a little time. And once you get in the habit, you will notice that your life has more control. You should say where your money goes, not lenders or creditors or anyone else.

Mistake #4: Not saving for retirement.

There are more seniors in the work place now than there were twenty years ago. And even more than there were fifty years ago. If you want to retire with enough money to live comfortably, you have to start putting something back today. Start an IRA. Contribute to your employer’s 401(k) plan. Figure out how much you need to invest and find a way to do it. This is your future. You don’t want to reach sixty and realize that you can’t afford to stop working. There is no guarantee that you will be able to draw social security or other forms of assistance then. What if you become ill and have to retire? What if you get hurt? Prepare for the future. Start saving for retirement today.

Martin Lukac represents RateTake Refinance Rate mortgage marketplace. RateTake matches consumers with multiple lenders offering low Refinance Rates from our network of accredited lenders

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Martin_Lukac
http://EzineArticles.com/?Financial-Mistakes-to-Learn-From&id=346218