A Personal finance blog for saving money and earning more and thus having a better life
With the economy roaring back to new levels of stability, the time to save money for the future is now. Interest rates continue to grow, which means your money could work harder for you now so you have a nice nest egg on which to rely in the future.
Before you decide to open a retirement, checking, or savings account, you might want to know which banks have the best interest rates right now. You can easily find this information by doing a quick search online.
I am sure you’re anxiously seeing the stock indices volatility and gross downturn past few weeks. Is it abnormal? Naturally, stocks do vary. For example, there are dividend stocks or defensive stocks. A good beginning stock is dividend stocks which give buyers a long-term return. A defensive stock is a good beginning stock for a long-term investment like water, electrical, or utility stocks.
I am not panicking with the recent market downturn. Neither should be you. We need to understand how these markets work. The loss you are seeing now re all paper loss, you don’t make a loss till you sell your positions. I am holding tights on to my stocks and funds.
Do you tend to spend more than you earn? Do you procrastinate paying your bills on time? Well, not everybody is good at managing their finances. While some find it difficult to maintain the minimum balance in their account, others shop using their credit cards and tend to spend more than their budget.
If you don’t know how to manage your finances when you earn, thinking of saving for retirement would seem like a Herculean task. Many people, especially middle-income earners find it difficult to save money for their future.
Keeping your personal finance in order is vital to avoid debt and afford certain things like a car or, your home at a lower interest rate. Getting your money in order helps avoid the stress and disarray caused by mounting debt.
The good news is, a financial situation can be improved, mainly through self-discipline. Following are 4 major tips for financial quick fixes that you can try when going gets tough. Not in particular order, all of these need to be taken care off at the same time.
We have some beliefs around money, which we cultivate since our childhood. Sometimes they are the beliefs shared to us by our parents. Sometimes we assume on our own. Do you have some time to think about those beliefs? You should take some time out and relfect on those beliefs.
You never know how many of money concepts we have are actually not true. Some beliefs are limiting, some are no longer valid in our generation. Some are partially applicable to our lives. Let’s discuss 10 most prominent money beliefs that you should avoid, as those might hinder not only your financial life but your life in general
Personal finance can be seen as personal or it can be treated as a small business, whatever works for you to give it your first priority. I see it as a set of personal goals. At the same time, I do tend to think sometimes that as I am the only bread earner, I am the CEO of this company and my wife and son are the employees.
Which means our little family is a small business and I got to take care of the business and my employees.
The sole purpose of drawing similarity between a personal finance and small business is that for some of you who would love to work with this imaginary scenario in order to succeed.
Let’s admit it, for most of us managing finances effectively is a tough task. I said most, and by this I meant – probably 90% of us, who do struggle to get finances in order. There are some bitter truth about personal finances that will come across as challenges. But, barring few wealthy people, most of us will struggle to keep up to those. Today let me tell you these bitter and tough facts about personal finance.
Your parents did their best to prepare you for the real world. Your schools taught you to tackle any situation. Unfortunately, their lessons in money management may have been slightly off. We were not taught to cope up with these financial bitter facts that’d surely come and bite us.
Managing your finances can be a rather stressing task because there are so many influencing factors. Your income or lack of it. Your savings or lack of it. Your spending or excess of it. But most importantly what you want and how much control you have in place with respect to spending your money determines your financial success.
Some people seem to have a knack at being good in managing their finances, but there are some of us who struggle a little (or a lot). More than one-third of American population is in debt. So, we do struggle. A lot!
Other than learning tips and tricks from finance gurus, you sometimes learn through your own mistakes. Making financial mistake is no doubt a mistake that comes with a hefty price, pun intended, but it will definitely be a lesson too valuable for you to forget.
There are a thousand credit cards available in the market. Whereas, individual carries, on average, 2 credit cards. So, how to shortlist? How you’d zero in on a few credit cards from seeming an infinite number of options? Choosing a right credit card has become one of the most important topics of personal finance. But, I haven’t written up on this earlier. Let me cover every step that one must take to pick the best credit card fitting to their need.
Regular readers will know that we bought our first home in August 2014. Immediately after getting the keys, I started with the interior painting. It did save cost and also I learned a new skill. I was happy. But, the happiness was short-lived, one evening while returning to our apartment after painting job, I got a traffic ticket. I was doing a 55 on a 40 MPH road. That it was a speed trap was well known but still I wasn’t concentrating on my speed. A momentary loss of concentration cost us $158.
$158 is the cheapest cost I paid. Had I neglected, I’d have ended up paying a lot more. There is some cost of moving violation that is not very well-known to all. So, this blog is dedicated to educating people on the various cost of traffic tickets.
