Simple Financial Lifestyle

Simple Sunday Financial Blogger’s Roundup – Winter Olympics Edition

B Simple — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:00:29 +0000

After celebrating a Saints Super Bowl victory and Mardi Gras, I think its now time to get back to work. Its been a great celebration. Let’s start with my Sunday Roundup.

Sunday Roundup offers links to this week’s personal finance blogger’s roundups. Its great way to find the best personal finance posts of the week. There were several good roundups this week that I thought you may find valuable.

Here are this week’s Personal Finance Roundups:

Fiscal Geek offers Delayed Friday Round-Up

Earn.Give.Save offers Weekend LinkLove: Saturday, February 20, 2010

PF Journey offers Along the Journey Weekly Roundup #3 Pay Off Debt Edition

Suburban Dollar offers Friday Finance Followers – Finding Your Focus Edition

Being Frugal offers Friday Financially Savvy Links: Sunshine Edition

Len Penzo offers Black Coffee: My Favorite Blogs, Money News, and Opinions #34

One Money Design offers Friday Round Up: Save Money on Tax Preparation Fees Edition

Joe Tax Payer offers An Olympian Finance Roundup

Canadian Finance Blog offers Friday Links

Redeeming Riches offers This Week in Personal Finance – February 19, 2010

The Oblivious Investor offers Weekend Reading 2/19/2010

Moneavator offers Weekend reading: Fidelity or infidelity?

Budgets are Sexy offers Who Wants an iPod Shuffle?

Financial Highway offers Weekly Round Up – Olympics Edition

Personal Finance By the Book offers Weekly Roundup

Wise Bread offers Best of Personal Finance Roundup: How to Turn Cheap “Choice” Steak into Gucci “Prime” Steak

Simple Dollar offers The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Headset Edition

Gather Little by Little offers Friday Gathering: Post-Valentine’s Day Edition

Let me know if you like this Sunday Edition recap of the personal finance bloggers weekly roundups which offer the best personal finance posts from the prior week. Leave me a comment to let me know your thoughts if you find it valuable. If you would like to be included in the Sunday Roundup of Roundups sent me a DM or @ me your link on Twitter BSimple .

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Simple Sunday Financial Blogger’s Roundup – Super Bowl Edition

B Simple — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:00:27 +0000

This week’s simple financial tip was knowing your credit score. It discussed how having a high credit score can help you simplify your personal finances. Here are some additional articles from this week that I believe can help you simplify your personal finances so you can live a simple financial lifestyle.

You always hear that you need a credit card to establish credit. Well Suburban Dollar explains how you Can Build a Credit History Without Getting a Credit Card.

To live a simple financial lifestyle you must be financial proactive. Free From Broke What Will The Next Ten Years Be For You Financially?

One way to improve your credit score is to reduce the number of credit cards you have outstanding. This post How to Cancel a Credit Card offers some tips to help you close those unneeded credit cards.

Personal Dividends offers a great February’s Financial Checklist to keep you on track with reaching your personal financial goals you set for yourself.

Still looking for more personal financial articles to help you simplify your finances. Check out this collection of Personal Finance Roundups from this week:

Fiscal Geek offers Perma Friday Round-up

PF Journey offers Along the Journey Weekly Roundup #1 “New” Edition

Suburban Dollar offers Friday Finance Followers – Snow Bunny Edition

Being Frugal offers Friday Financially Savvy Links – Happy Birthday Stargirl Edition

Len Penzo offers Black Coffee: My Favorite Blogs, Money News & Opinions #32

Canadian Finance Blog offers Friday Links – Anniversary Edition

Redeeming Riches offers This Week in Personal Finance – February 5, 2010

Joe Taxpayer offers Superbowl Sunday Roundup

Downturn Living offers Weekend Round-Up: Personal Finance Favorites

Studenomics offers Book Giveaway Link Roundup

The Oblivious Investor offers Weekend Reading, Buying Life Insurance Edition

Budgets are Sexy offers Weekly Roundup: Another $50 giveaway + Fave articles

Financial Highway offers Weekly Round Up-Stock Myths, Valentines, Con Artist and More

Mighty Bargain Hunter offers Friday Fiscals: Blizzard Edition

Rainy Day Saver offers Saturday Link Love – No Snow Edition

Frugal Dad offers Weekly Roundup: Unexpected Unemployment Results

Wise Bread offers Best of Personal Finance Roundup: 50+ Cheap and Healthy Party Foods for the Super Bowl

Simple Dollar offers The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Resolution Updates Edition

Darwin’s Finance offers Weekend Reading – “There Will Be Blood” Edition

Generation X Finance offers Friday Finance Findings for February 5th

Gather Little by Little offers Friday Gathering: Signing Day Edition

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Keys to Win Your Personal Financial Super Bowl

B Simple — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:00:40 +0000

The Super Bowl will be played in a few hours when my hometown Saints will face the Colts. To prepare for this big day each team has put in hours of preparation time so they can execute their game plan to win the game. The Saints have designed a defensive game plan to stop the Colts and Peyton Manning from scoring while the Colts have designed a defensive game plan to stop the Saints and Drew Brees ( I hoping the Colts game plan does not work). Just like each Super Bowl team has designed their offensive and defensive game plans to win the Super Bowl. You should design your own personal financial game plan to help you simplify your personal finances so you can win the personal finance game.

Here are a few keys to winning the Super Bowl as well as your personal financial game:

Financial Offensive Keys to the Game

Accumulate Yards

In the game of football, you want your offense to accumulate a lot of yards so you can score. In the Super Bowl both teams will design plays to gain yards. Some plays will be designed to gain a lot of yards while other plays will be designed to gain a few yards. The same can be said for your financial game plan. Instead of yards you want to accumulate money to save. So design some short term and long term saving plans to accumulate money. This will help you win the financial game.

Don’t Get Sacked

Both Super Bowl teams will try to protect their quarterbacks from being sacked. Having a good offensive line can help you protect your quarterback from being sacked. In the financial game, the best way to avoid being sacked is to have a financial budget. A financial budget will show you where the pressure is coming from and will enable you to put extra protection in place to prevent the sack.

Don’t Fumble

To win the Super Bowl each player must protect the football and not fumble it. To prevent you from fumbling the ball in the financial game, consider consolidating your accounts. The more accounts you have the more likely you are to fumble. Consolidating will help you have a better grip and hold on your accounts so you can monitor them better and avoid fumbling.

Financial Defensive Keys to the Game

Protect Your Endzone

On the defensive side each team wants to limit the number of touchdowns the other team scores. The best way to do this is to have a good defensive game plan in place to eliminate those touchdowns. In your financial game, you also want to protect your end zone. The best way to protect your end zone and eliminate those scores is to have insurance in place. Insurance is a great defense, which can help you hold the other team to field goals or not allow them to score at all.

Avoid the Big Play

If you want to win the Super Bowl your defense can not give up the big play. The other team may have a few trick plays in their game plan to get that big play to score. In the financial game, you have to prepare yourself for those unexpected trick plays. To do this establish an emergency fund, just in case one of those trick plays are called you will be prepared to quickly response and prevent that score from occurring.

Good Red Zone Defense

In the Super Bowl, each teams red zone defense must tighten up to prevent the other team from scoring. The same goes in the personal financial game. You should set up red zone alert when your accounts reach predetermined amounts. By having red zone alerts, you can make adjustments in advance of some things happen like your account being overdrawn.

What are your financial keys to help you win the personal financial game and simplify your personal finances?

TAKE ACTION

If you don’t already have a personal financial game plan in place put one. You cannot win the game without a good game plan in place. Once its in place you must execute on your plan. What good is a plan without execution.

Remember in order to simplify your personal finances you must take one step at a time.

This post was featured in Carnival of Personal Finance #243: Valentine’s Day Edition hosted by Get Rich Slowly

If you would like more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Simple Personal Financial Tip: Know your Score

B Simple — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:00:07 +0000

Know the score. I am not talking about knowing the score of the sporting event you maybe watching. I talking about knowing your credit score. Knowing your score is important part of simplifying your personal finances. Having a high score will usually help you win the game depending on the sport you are playing. Having a high credit score will also help you win personal financial game and helps you simplify your personal finances.

Here are ways that a high credit score will help you win the game.

Better interest rates
Knowing your score enables you to know what interest rate you should receive when you apply for home loan, car loan, or credit card. The higher the score the better interest rate you will receive. So knowing your score provides you with some bargaining power when it comes to interest rates.

Better approval rate
Not only will you receive better interest rates if you have a high credit score but you are more likely to get approval for your loan request. Having high credit score is more important than the amount of income you earn. I say this because before your loan goes to the underwriting process your credit report is pulled. If your credit score is low, your loan request will not even make it the underwriting process.

Lower insurance rates
Yes your driving record and claims history is important factor that determines your insurance rate. But your credit score is just as important. If you have a high credit score you will receive a lower rate if everything else is in order. So your credit score can impact the insurance rate you receive.

Improve employment chances
Yes your credit score can determine if you receive that next job offer. If everything else is equal and your credit score is lower than the other candidates, you maybe facing an uphill battle to land the job. With a tight job market, your credit score can be the determining factor if you get the job or not. Potential employer will look at your credit score to see if you are fiscally responsible.

Take Action:

Pull your credit report to review your credit score. Look to see what your score is and look for ways to improve your score. You want to do this prior to applying for a loan, applying for a job or purchasing insurance. In the financial game the highest score always wins.

Remember take one step at a time to simplify your personal finances.

This post was featured in Money Hacks Carnival # 102

If you would like more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Simple Sunday Financial Blogger’s Roundup – Pro Bowl Edition

B Simple — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:00:11 +0000

This year’s Pro Bowl features many first time players since the Super Bowl players are not participating in the game but it also features many regulars participates. Just like this year’s Pro Bowl this week’s Sunday Roundup features some new bloggers and some regular participates. So check out this week’s personal finance blogger’s roundups which feature some of the best personal finance articles this week.

Here are this week’s Personal Finance Roundups:

Think Your Way to Wealth offers Personal Finance Links- Saints in the Super Bowl Edition

JoeTaxPayer offers Another Sunday Personal Finance Roundup

Suburban Dollar offers Friday Finance Followers – Here Comes the Storm Edition

Fiscal Geek offers Friday Round Up and New Stuff I’m Looking At

The Wisdom Journal offers Roundup and Link Love: Ice Storm January 2010 Edition

The Debt Hawk offers Get Out of Debt – Friday January 29 Edition

Money Relation offers Friday Feed Frenzy – The Debtor’s Mind

The Oblivious Investor offers Weekend Reading 1/29/2010

Realm of Prosperity offers Weekend Links: On an eHow Writing Marathon

Personal Finance by the Book offers Weekly Roundup

Redeeming Riches offers This Week in Personal Finance – January 29, 2010

Monevator offers Weekend reading: Interest is interesting

Free From Broke offers Links 01-31-10

Wise Bread offers Best of Personal Finance Roundup: I’ve Got One of the Recalled Toyotas. Now What?

Simple Dollar offers The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Comment Bug Edition

Budgets are Sexy offers Weekly Roundup: $50 Giveaways, Slaves & Lifestyle Design

Simply Forties offers Link Love 1.28.2010

Frugal Dad offers Weekly Roundup: Big Screen for the Big Game Edition

Len Penzo offers Black Coffee: My Favorite Blogs, Money News & Opinions #31 (The ‘Len Penzo Sucks’ Edition)

Canadian Finance Blog offers Friday Links

Generation X Finance offers Friday Finance Findings for January 29

Simple Financial Lifestyle offers Simple Weekend Roundup – Stuck, Steal, Organize, Budget, & Save

Gather Little by Little offers Friday Gathering: Tax Time Edition

Being Frugal offers Friday Financially Savvy Links – Tax the Small Businesses Out of Business Edition

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Simple Weekend Roundup – Stuck, Steal, Organize, Budget, & Save

B Simple — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:00:31 +0000

If you want to simplify your personal finances you must get organized. Can not allow things to steal your time which prevents you from simplifying. You need to set a budget and stick to it. If your stuck in a rut you must get out and move forward. Here are this week’s favorite articles which can help do those exact things:

Its only January but its time to get ready for tax time. Cash Money Life helps you prepare for tax time with How to Organize Your Tax Documents

Having a budget is important when simplifying your finances but sticking to your budget is even more important. Wisebread offers some tips on Why you can’t stick with a budget

What is your reason for not simplifying your finances? Are you stuck. This post The Reason You’re Stuck on Zen Habits can help getting you unstuck.

One Money Design offers 10 Smart Money Moves to Save Money and Put Your Finances in Order.

Is your excuse for not simplifying your finances is that you do not have time? Well Time Management Ninja can help with Why do we let people steal our time?.

Carnivals and blogs my articles were featured in:

The 241st Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by My Journey to Millions

Personal Finance Links- Saints in the Super Bowl Edition hosted by fellow Saints Fan RC at Think you Way to Wealth.

This ‘N’ That Thursday hosted by My Reason(s) to Blog!!!

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Simple Sunday Financial Blogger’s Roundup – Championship Edition

B Simple — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 12:30:46 +0000

Its Conference Championship Sunday in the NFL. My beloved Saints are at home in the Dome taking on the Vikings. Go Saints. WHO DAT. So you know where I will be at 5:40 Sunday afternoon glued to the television. If you are not a Saints, Vikings, Colts or Jets fan, you make have some spare time on your hands to read. Here are some of the best personal finances articles from this week’s personal finance blogger’s roundups.

Here are this week’s Personal Finance Roundups:

Christian PF offers Looking forward to Spring | Roundup

Suburban Dollar offers Friday Finance Followers – Bring It Edition

Joe Taxpayer Roth Roundup

Redeeming Riches offers This Week in Personal Finance – January 22, 2010

Wise Bread offers Best of Personal Finance Roundup: How to Make Homemade Cough Drops

Simple Dollar offers The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Bugs Edition

Budgets are Sexy offers Weekly Roundup: Shorty Awards, 401(k)s, & Staying Poor

Simply Forties offers Love Link

Evolution of Wealth offers Link Roundup 18

Frugal Dad offers Weekly Roundup: The Showdown Edition

Darwin’s Finance offers Weekend Reading: HealthCare Up in the Air Edition

Len Penzo offers Black Coffee: My Favorite Blogs, Money News & Opinions #30

Canadian Finance Blog offers Friday Links

Mighty Bargain Hunter offers Friday Fiscals: Washer and dryer edition

Generation X Finance offers Friday Finance Findings for January 22nd

Lazyman and Money offers 8 Things I Think I Think (and Personal Finance Links)

Simple Financial Lifestyle offers Simple Weekend Roundup – Debt, Comfort Zones, Savings, & Retirement

Gather Little by Little offers Friday Gathering: What happened in MA last week?

Four Pillars offers New iPhone LinkStuff Edition

Being Frugal offers Friday Financially Savvy Links – Ask the Tax Expert Edition

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Simple Weekend Roundup – Debt, Comfort Zones, Savings, & Retirement

B Simple — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:00:09 +0000

Looking to live a simple financial lifestyle you need to eliminate your debt, break out of your comfort zone, save more, and set your retirement goals. Here are this week’s favorite article which can help do those exact things:

Key to simplifying your finances is to eliminate your debt. But its not always easy. Matt Jabs in his post Debt Slavery – What it is and Ways Out offers some tips to help you get out of your debt.

We all have our own personal comfort zone. But many times if we want to change something in our lives we must break out of these comfort zones. In a guest post at Get Rich Slowly, Flexo offers Break Out of Your Comfort Zone to Achieve Success.

In order to simplify your personal finances you must save more. Steadfast Finances offers a solution to help you save in Should I Ignore My Raise and Save the Difference in Income?. Its an easy and simple way to help you save.

Simple Marriage offers 6 Steps to a Simple and Successful Financial Life. These tips are a great starting point.

Understanding your retirement needs is key to simplifying your finances. Canadian Finance Blog offers How Much Do You Need To Retire? The 10% Rule which can help you with your retirement savings.

Here are other articles from this week you may find helpful:

Top 10 Money Drains

7 Money Lessons From Monopoly

How to Find a CPA

Living Life to the Fullest: Are You FULL of it?

Carnivals I participated in this week:

Carnival of Personal Finance – Support Haiti Edition hosted by Million Dollar Jorney.

Money Hacks Carnival #100 hosted by Ultimate Money Blog.

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

How shopping helped me save over $500 on insurance

B Simple — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:00:18 +0000

A great way to simplify your personal finances as well as save you some money is to do a little shopping. I am not talking about going to the mall to shop for clothes. I am talking about just picking up the phone to do some comparison shopping.

I recently received my annual renewal for my homeowner’s insurance. Upon reviewing the renewal notice, I was a little shocked at the cost of my renewal. What even shocked me more was the fact that my coverage was not increased. I had been insured with this company the past four years and I never had a claim. So I called my agent to ask why such a large increase in premium. They stated due to recent natural disasters their cost has increased so everyone was seeing a significant increase in their premium. With that said, I decided it was time to do a little shopping just to see if other companies had increased their premiums also. If that was the case I was ok but I wanted to see before I renewed my policy.

I called three different companies to provide me quotes based on my existing coverage. All three companies came back with quotes lower than my new premium. So I decided it was worth my time to review these quotes in more detail as well as review the company as well. I did not want to change insurance providers just to lower my premium but receive less than satisfactory customer service or the insurance company not be there when you need them. After that review I was able to eliminate one of the three companies. This left me with two companies with very similar quotes. However, one company decide to provide me with a quote based on having my car insurance with them as well. When they applied the car insurance it lower the homeowner’s policy even lower and was able to reduce my existing car insurance also. So by combining my home owner’s insurance with my car insurance, I was able to save a little over $800 annually. Not only did I save but I also have more homeowner’s coverage than I had previously.

With a few phone calls and a little research, I started this year off with a $800 savings. Its a great way to start off the new year.

Here are some steps to help you do the same thing but I can not guarantee you will save as much:

Question your rate increase? Ask the reason for the increase.
Call other insurance companies for quotes on a similar coverage
Perform due diligence on the companies you receive quotes from
Ask for quotes on homeowner’s and car insurance you may receive an additional savings.
Don’t make decision based solely on price make sure coverage is same or better. You don’t want to save by having less coverage.

Take Action

When you receive your next renewal notice in the mail, do a little insurance shopping before you send your payment.

Not only did I save some money but I also simplified my finances by consolidating my insurance carrier.

If you would like more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Simple Personal Financial Tip – Disaster Plan

B Simple — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:00:09 +0000

If you would like more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

In a previous post Are your Personal Finances Ready for the Unexpected? I discuss the important of being prepared. With the recent earthquakes in Haiti, its a reminder that we all need to be prepared for those unexpected natural disasters. You never know when it will strike but you should be prepare in case it does strike. We all say it will never happen to us but trust me it can happen. Having lived through a natural disaster, I know what it is like. Its not easy but having your personal finances and emergency plan in place helps relieve some stress.

Here are five things you will need to help you prepare financial for a natural disaster:

Emergency Fund – Make sure your emergency fund is properly funded in case of disaster. Do you currently have sufficient funds in your emergency fund to cover the cost of your insurance deductibles or any other expense no cover by your insurance.

Home owner’s Insurance – Do you have proper homeowner’s insurance on your home? Does your current homeowner’s policy cover natural disaster? You want to make sure you are properly covered in case of disaster.

Disaster Insurance – Do you currently have flood, earthquake, fire, tornado, or hurricane in place in case of disaster? If you have this insurance already in place is the coverage adequate? Review your home owner’s and disaster insurance to make these two policies will coverage any damage to your home.

Financial Documents – Create a file to keep copies of all your important documents such as insurance policies, medical documents, and any other documents you may need in emergency. You should keep these in file cabinet instead on your computer. You will probably not have electricity or internet access.

Financial Contact List – Create a disaster contact file. This should include numbers to your insurance company, mortgage company, and debt holders. This list should also be keep with the financial documents so everything you will need is in one location.

Action Step

Here are three action steps:

Take some time this week to review your emergency fund to make sure its properly funded with enough funds to cover your insurance deductibles and other out of pocket expenses you can anticipate.
Review your home owner and disaster insurance coverage to make sure you are properly covered. If not, call your insurance provider to increase your coverage.
Create your disaster plan file folder by gathering all the necessary documents and numbers that you will need in a disaster situation.

If you have not yet contributed to the Haiti Relieve Fund here is a link to American Red Cross. Those impacted by this disaster can use your help.

Remember take one step at a time to simplify your personal finances.

If you would like more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.