Search Results for: blog setting priorities for your money

Seven Ways to Save Money on Everyday Expenses

Minimize the cost of running your home when you use the following tips to save money on those everyday expenses. 1. Combine services It isn’t only your cable service that offers bundling. Once you are done combining your Internet, phone and cable television into one package, move on to other services that be combined in order to save money on your monthly expenses. For example, you can combine your home and auto insurance for a lower overall rate. 2. Pay your bills on time That $5 or $10 a month may not seem like much, but in the course of … Continue reading →

Setting Your Priorities

Do you have a good handle on your financial priorities? You might be a person who doesn’t like to budget. Perhaps you don’t really know where all of that money goes every month. Then again, you might be a person who has a wonderful budget, but you don’t find that the money is going where you want it to go. This is where priorities come in. You have priorities. For many of us, our financial priorities center on the everyday and urgent expenses in our lives. Sometimes this is all we can handle. However, if you take a look at … Continue reading →

Setting Priorities for your Money

Setting your own personal priorities and goals for your life in regards to money is really the very first step. However, many people skip it. They set up savings, investments and even their budget, without really taking the time to figure out their priorities. Very few people can achieve all their goals and desires. Still, if you can narrow down your dreams to a few key ones, the possibility of achieving them magnifies. Start first by making a list of all your financial dreams. Then review them, selecting the top five that are most important to you. If you have … Continue reading →

Tips on Saving and Raising Money for College

The following are some ideas and tips to help you make college a reality for your children. Whatever their ages, if you want to ensure your kids receive a quality education, consider the following options. 1. State Sponsored 529 Plans: This is a profitable scenario if your kids are still quite young. With these plans, not only can you save for college, you can also gain tax breaks as well as receive investment earning that are tax-free. 2. Monthly Savings Plans: Any amount you save will be helpful. Try to get in the habit a setting aside a set amount … Continue reading →

Trying to Stay Motivated? Try Contracting With Yourself

Staying motivated is tough—there’s just no way around it. You can make lists and goals, paste up affirmations all over the place, assemble a team of mentors to keep you going and various other “tricks” to stay focused on building your home business, but it still might not be enough to keep your nose to the grindstone. A colleague recently shared with me another tip for keeping oneself on task—drawing up and signing a personal contract. This individual is trying to stay motivated to work on writing projects and decided that coming up with a contract to sign stating what … Continue reading →

Three Ways to Marriage and Money Balance

Is money a problem for you and your spouse? As the old saying goes, money can not buy a happiness, but money problems can shred a marriage and leave you and your spouse frustrated, angry and arguing with each other. Now, I am the last person to offer money management advice, in fact – I was terrible at it for years. It was my husband who managed the bulk of the finances for years and then we developed a system of trading off managing the books so we were both aware of what was going on and we alleviated the … Continue reading →

Homeschooling and the Work-at-Home Mom, Part Two

The other day, I spoke about working from home and homeschooling, and shared my thoughts on the concept of balance. Today I’d like to talk about involving our children in our home businesses. Our goal as parents is to give our children a solid foundation of principles and skills so they can go into the world as caring, responsible people and be able to create a good life for themselves. You can take your home business and use it as a teaching tool for your children, a way to help prepare them in these areas. 1. As you work your … Continue reading →

Estate Planning and the Step Family

For too many of us, estate planning is the thing we’re always going to get to but often don’t. It’s like flossing, but with exponentially greater potential for harm. I understand why we procrastinate, believe me I do, but a failure to act in this department can have a devastating effect on your family. Our financial planner had been after us to create an estate plan for a year; as we began preparations for an extended trip through Mexico, it seemed irresponsible not to have something in place. We contacted an attorney who came highly recommended, and blithely scheduled an … Continue reading →

Budgeting on a Limited Income

Posted on by

Whether you are a single parent, a student, retired or have other income situations, learning to live on a limited income can take some serious hard work. We should all have a budget, but if your income is tight… it is even more of an urgent need. When budgeting on a limited income, the key is to prioritize first. You simply might not have enough money to pay for all the standard budgeting categories. The first step will be to make a short list of your top necessities. Good examples are housing, food, utilities and transportation. There may be more, … Continue reading →

Perfectionists

Posted on by

Are you always striving toward perfection? Wondering why it never seems you can get there with your money? The problem in dealing with absolutes is that rarely does the world work that way. You can get an A-plus in school, but not in life. For those who stress about things like attaining the perfect credit score to finding the best performing mutual fund, you simply cannot win. Instead of worrying about being the best, accept that in the financial world doing very well is enough. Only a very small percent of people have a credit score in the high 700s…so … Continue reading →