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Tips for creating a budget and sticking to it

August 17th, 2007 by steve

There are lots of ways to create a good budget. One of the best ways is to work out everything you earn and everything you have to pay for each month. Then you can create a budget on the things that you have to pay for with the amount of money you’re earning.

Creating the budget doesn’t have to take long and can follow a few simple steps:

1. Work out all your ‘committed costs’. These are things that you must pay for in order to live, like your mortgage, loan repayments, utility bills such as electricity and most other monthly bills that are fixed every month.

2. Next work out all your ‘essential costs’, such as food bills, how much you spend getting to work etc. Once you have worked this out, what you are left with is your disposable income. This is the income you have left to pay for things that you could do without like clothes, leisure time or a coffee at Starbucks.

3. Then list all the monthly ‘consumable costs’ you want to pay for on a monthly basis like a shopping trip to buy birthday gifts, or a hobby. This can change month by month depending on what you have to pay for or you can budget every month a certain amount to pay for things such as clothes and shoes or a holiday at the end of the year.

When you create the list of the consumable costs, the budget becomes almost useless if you are regularly buying things you haven’t budgeted for such as regular trips out to restaurants or the movies. All these things should be budgeted for and you will know when you have accounted for everything because you will be able to predict you bank balance very easily.

Another few tips to remember when creating a budget:

1. Don’t plan to spend all your money every month because this will mean you won’t be prepared for unexpected costs, such as paying a plumber to fix a burst water pipe.

2. Try to save every month to account for a sudden change in your circumstances and also to prepare as early as possible for you retirement. The earlier you start, the more you can save.

3. Try to be disciplined and stick to your budget. A budget will only work if you are willing to stick to it. If you stray from your budget then your money will start disappearing from your bank account.

4. Finally, keep track of your monthly costs and every now and again look to see where you can save money by cutting out things you no longer need or want. It can be surprising what we pay for when you actually look at it.

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How to Avoid Credit Card Late Fees

August 3rd, 2007 by steve

Everyone hates late fees and being late will cost you dearly these days. For some credit cards today, if you are late, you will have to shell out as much as $40 each time. This can put a nice sized hole in your pocket really quick.

Below, I will provide you with some tips and strategies on how to steer clear of those monstrous late fees. This will not only save you a lot of money in the long run, but it will also keep those money-hungry credit card companies, I won’t mention any names, from getting your hard earned money.

Just pay your bill. One of the easiest ways of avoiding a late fee is to just pay your bill each and every month by sending in a check, money order, or other type of payment to your respective credit card issuer. Just make sure you follow the numerous guidelines, which are usually outlined on the back of each credit card bill, on how to send in your payment. These guidelines must be followed precisely if you want to guarantee that your payment will go through on time.

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Understanding the Catch-22 of a Student Credit Card

August 3rd, 2007 by steve

It will come as no secret to most people that if you have bad credit, it will make it tougher for you to get a new credit card account approved, simply because you are seen as a higher credit risk, and perhaps higher than a particular lender is willing to see for his customer base.But having NO credit established is almost as bad. It’s not as bad as having proven yourself to not make timely payments or even default on payments, as what typically happens when you have bad credit, but no credit falls into an area where the applicant is still a high risk factor because the creditor has no idea what kind of risk you will be. The interest rate that a lender sets, as well as whether or not they will even approve a new account for someone, is heavily dependent on how they view the applicant as a credit risk.

So where does one start? For the typical college student today who is looking to get a credit card, the “catch-22″ is that they do not have credit established so there is no credit history or credit score to judge them by. So they cannot get credit because they have no credit history, and they have no credit history because they cannot get a credit card. As odd as that scenario sounds, that is the situation faced by tens of thousands of college students every year.

But there are ways around this if you are willing to start smaller and get a credit history built up. Although you will clearly not qualify for an American Express card with no credit history, let’s explore some of the credit options you do have to get that credit history established.

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Easy Steps To Developing A Debt Consolidation Solution Budget

August 3rd, 2007 by steve

It may seem to most people, that developing a debt consolidation solution budget should be an basic task, however most people are simply not inclined to work with spreadsheets, balance check books or lay out a formal budget, whether it is by nature, or as a result of a bad reaction to public school mathematics training, a good number of people just aren’t numbers people.However, most will find it in their self-interest to make the effort to detail their income against expenses, even if it means getting someone else to help undertake the task. The debt consolidation solution budget should include monthly income and outgoings / items, projections of expected increases and decreases in income / wages and bills and a good amount of money as a buffer for any unexpected events.

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How To Do Credit Card Debt Consolidation

August 3rd, 2007 by steve

Knowing that you are in a financial pickle and need to find some way to do credit card debt consolidation is not an enviable place to be, but I am sure you did not choose to be there. Nonetheless, that is where you are at right now and you need to understand what your options are to get out from under this huge financial burden, which is also causing stress in your life and your relationships.There is little doubt that you have considered bankruptcy. Popular wisdom believes that bankruptcy is a slick way out to enable you to eliminate all your debt and start over from square one. But consider the fact that that same popular wisdom also believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. The new bankruptcy laws make it make more difficult, painful, and expensive to file bankruptcy, and the virtual mountain of paperwork you need to complete to do so will keep you from the tasks you need to perform to get yourself back on track for weeks or more at a time. For some, bankruptcy may actually be their most viable option, but for the majority of people who are just simply looking for a way to do credit card debt consolidation, there is a much easier way. If you are trying to kill a fly, you do not need to take measures as drastic as dynamite – while that WILL kill the fly, it will also do much more damage to many other things that are much harder to repair.

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