Spending Less 101

Digest for 10/06/08

admin — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:10:22 +0000

Settling Credit Card Debt

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Settling Credit Card Debt

John — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:00:28 +0000

It is truly sad that more people are not aware that it is very possible to settle credit card debt personally without ever having to deal with a legal representative. If the credit companies that you owe money to decide to take legal action against you, they will charge you with their no doubt costly legal fees.

It would be wise to call the credit card companies yourself and try to work out a settlement agreement with them on a personal basis. The credit card companies really don’t want the situation to progress to the point where they have to take legal action, so they will probably be willing to negotiate even if your account has been delinquent for several months.

Start by trying to adjust your interest rate and lower service charges that have been applied to your account. Once you know what the credit company is charging you, you will be more prepared to negotiate effectively with them on a settlement.

In your efforts to reach a debt settlement with the credit card company you should focus your efforts on negotiating over the interest rate and service charges first, not discussing the principal. The credit card companies make their money off the service charges and interest rates on your account, so try to make a deal that benefits you both mutually.

Next Comes the Hard Part

The money that you spent on purchases that has already been paid by the credit card company, called the principal, is the hardest aspect of your debt to negotiate over with credit card companies. They don’t want to have paid for something and not have you pay them back.

Getting your way with negotiations over the principal is not easy, so don’t feel bad if the credit card company refuses to budge. Even getting the company to adjust your interest rate or service charges is difficult. Remember that the credit card company’s goal is to get their money from you, not repossess your things.

Regardless of what agreement you reach with the credit card company, you need to be prepared to follow through with your end of the deal. If you fail to meet the terms of your settlement plan, you can expect the credit card company to take aggressive action to get their money, not a second chance.

Before you consider consolidation as a way to get your debt paid off, you need to consider the debt consolidation loan consequences. It’s not always a good idea to consolidate your debt. Find out why on the Inside Debt Consolidation website

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=W._M._Blake

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Digest for 09/22/08

admin — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:14:51 +0000

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Download A Free Movie

John — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:41:51 +0000

Michael Moore is set to release his new movie “Slacker Uprising” online, for free. For 3 weeks starting September 23rd, the movie will be available for download. Get more information…

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Saving money on pet care…

John — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 05:01:44 +0000

I just came across a post entitled 15 Ways To Save Money on Pet Care. It mentions quite a few ways to save money on pet care. Most of these are ways I already practice, but one thing that keeps coming back up (and something I have not yet had time to explore) is pet insurance.

I finally decided to check out pet insurance online. The first site I looked at was, of course, www.petinsurance.com.

Here is a quote from their main page: A VPI Pet Insurance policy provides reimbursement coverage for your pet’s eligible medical treatments, surgeries, lab fees, X-rays, prescriptions and more, so that you can make optimal healthcare decisions for your pet based on your veterinarian’s recommendation, rather than on the cost of treatment.

You can get a quote and review/modify your policy information online…just like any other insurance policy. Next thing you know, they will have insurance for … actually, I can’t think of anything.

Check it out. I am. I have a cat with hyperthyroidism. I need to find out if pre-existing conditions are covered.

Some other insurance providers are:

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Use paper, not plastic

John — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:31:18 +0000

I know I have written other posts that profess the benefits of using a certain debit card or credit card. That suggestion is specific to that particular instance. What you really need to do, however, is pay for everything with CASH.

I know this may seem a little strange, but the point of paying with cash is to make you realize how much money you are actually spending on a daily basis. People are inclined to spend a lot more when they are using a credit card or debit card because there is not real accounting of how much is going out.

Try this approach for a month and take an accounting of how much money you actually save. I am going to start my month tomorrow.

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Last ditch “spend no money” effort

John — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:19:20 +0000

This one comes from the book pictured below. I had to quote it because I thought it was so profound.

“Volunteer for a few hours every month at a local homeless shelter; then see how you feel about buying some more stuff.“

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Don’t point that credit card at me…

John — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:00:47 +0000

Even gun purchases have a mandatory waiting period. It’s a period of time to check the record of the person purchasing the gun, in order to keep criminals and the like from purchasing firearms. Guns can be dangerous…and so can people who don’t think before the buy.

How about imposing a mandatory waiting period on all purchases? With this approach, you have time to think about what you are about to do, and in some cases, the commitment you are about to make. Think about it. Have you ever made a purchase, and after a few days wondered why you ever purchased the item in the first place? Well, with the waiting period approach, if you wait 2 days, you may end up coming to your senses and averting the purchase.

If the item is something that might be gone if you don’t make the purchase right now, try layaway. In most cases, you can get your money back without seeing the layaway through.

Just WAIT…

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Digest for 09/15/08

admin — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:06:57 +0000

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5 Strategies to Teach Your Children About Saving Money

John — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 07:37:53 +0000

Teaching your children financial skills is critical for their future. 80% of parents believe that their children are being taught personal money matters in school, yet 90% of high school students and 87% of college students say that whatever they know about money they learn from their parents. Among parents with children 5 and older, only 26% feel well enough prepared to teach their kids about personal finances. Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy measured 12th graders’ knowledge of personal finance basics and found that only 10% of high school graduates could satisfactorily answer questions about personal finance.

Not sure where to start in talking to you kids about money? You’re not alone. But, much like teaching your kids to look both ways before crossing the street, managing money, is a parental responsibility that safeguards kids’ future. Good habits start early in life and the savings habit brings lifelong benefits. Kids are interested in money and they can learn by example and by doing. Sharing how and why your family is saving emphasizes the importance of this positive, lifelong habit.

Engage your children using some of these simple, fun suggestions and help them learn the value of money:

1. Explain to your kids what money is all about.
You can start doing this once you see that your kids are already able to learn how to count. The earlier you can teach a child or teenager about money, including earning money, saving money, and spending money responsibility, the better prepared they will be to manage their own money.

2. Talk to your child about the family budget.
Allow them to ask questions about household finances and how you manage the household budget. Reinforce the learning process by budgeting for a family outing or a purchase.

3. Encourage children to start saving by opening a savings account for them.
If they are younger, you can still make savings “real” to them by having them build their savings in a piggy bank or clear jar. You can motivate them to allot a portion of their allowance to their savings. If you have multiple children, one way to keep them motivated is by giving a prize to whoever earned the highest amount in their savings.

4. Explaining the value of spending money can also be done at home.
You can assign some household chores and pay a small amount once they were able to do it. This will help them realize that money is not earned easily and should be spent wisely.

5. Show your children how an ATM machine works.
While many children know that money doesn’t grow on trees, they may think it comes out of a wall. Help your kids understand that you must put money in the bank before you can take it out.

When you discuss money with kids, you help them develop a sense of limits. You’re teaching kids that the family has to make choices about how it can spend money. There’s only so much money to go around — if you spend it on some things, you won’t have it to spend on others. Teaching your children about saving money doesn’t have to be a difficult task. Remember to be patient and consistent, and your children will be able to learn this critical skill in an easy and fun way.

Barbara House is the founder of Really Busy People - a website dedicated to providing current news, informative articles, time-saving products & services to simplify your hectic, busy lifestyle. Please visit Really Busy People for more articles on parenting and finances.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barbara_House

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Find out why saving money depends on you making a budget

John — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 06:25:48 +0000

Do you have a budget? If so, is it in your head? If you have a photographic memory and can keep up with your budget without writing it down, stop reading. Humor me and keep track of what you spend for one month.

You will be shocked at what the small expenses add up to. Add up the cost of the unnecessary things and multiply that by 12 months, then multiply that by 5 years.

That is how much you could have saved (and drawn interest on) in just five years. This is the very reason everyone needs a budget.

We can enjoy financial success if we can get control of those small expenses that really have no bearing on our lives.

One example is the amount of money you may be spending on lunch. Cut what you spend on lunch from five dollars a day to three dollars a day. In a week, you will have saved $10. $40 in a month… $480 in a year… $2400 in five years….plus interest.

Don’t worry. You will still be eating lunch everyday. You will, however, have saved a ton of money and that’s just on lunch. There are other areas of your life where cuts can be made.

Set some specific long term and short term goals. There are no wrong answers here. If it’s important to you, then it’s important period.

If you want to be able to pay down some debt, buy a new car, or pay for your kids to go to college, think about the little things before it’s time to pay for the big things.

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Decorate your desktop without spending any money

John — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:30:15 +0000

Dektoptopia is a FREE desktop background manager that automatically loads and displays designer desktops on your monitor, as often as you wish.

Dektoptopia is packed with features that make it simple to automatically update your monitor with our designer desktops as often as you like.

They have a huge number of clean and crisp images. I just wish I had more than one desktop.

They application also has plenty of features to allow you to remain in control of your desktop. If you like the current one, just hit pause and keep it around for a while. They even have support for multiple monitor.

Users of the system can rate the desktops. This way, if you subscribe to a category of images, only the “best” ones will display, based on user input.

Finally, not everyone keeps their screens at the same resolution. Desktoptopia can automatically detect and adjust to your current screen resolution.

Desktoptopia delivers the most beautiful and inspiring desktops around from our ever-growing collection. But that’s only half the story. We keep our desktops useable, so you can actually find stuff on your desktop.

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Make Your Own A/C

John — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 06:33:06 +0000

Make a cheap, but functional a/c unit. Check out this video…

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Cut Your Grocery Bill

John — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 06:27:46 +0000

An easy way to cut your grocery bill week after week is to purchase generic or store brand items. Generic brands are better than they were years ago. If you haven’t bought generic recently, try a few items, you will probably be pleasantly surprised.

Another way to save is to cut coupons, but make sure the final price is less than the generic brand price. Some stores have double coupon days where they will double the value of your coupons up to a certain limit. Check out the policies of your favorite stores.

Convenience foods sometimes cost more than making things from scratch, but not always. For example: a batch chocolate chip cookies made from scratch (which only takes a few minutes) is 1/3 the cost of prepared cookie dough. But, you may to able to buy generic brand prepared cookies for less than the cost of making cookies from scratch.

There are several types of grocery stores and you should figure out the most cost effective way to use them - traditional grocery stores, discount stores, and wholesale stores. Traditional stores usually have a good variety and frequently offer special sale prices. Pay close attention to the specials and stock up. The discount stores often have less variety but offer everyday low prices that are often substantially less than a traditional store. Even if you don’t buy all your food at a discount store, you should shop there and buy as much as you can. The wholesale stores offer items in bulk quantities. If there are items that you use frequently and they won’t go bad before you use it all, this may be a good option. You could also shop with a friend and split the items.

It helps to plan your meals ahead of time. You can make index cards that list one menu per card and all the items needed to make that meal. It will take a few hours to get the index cards written out, but then each week you can easily flip through them and pull out the ones you want to use that week. If the menu includes something that you need a recipe for, the ingredients can be listed on the bottom of the index card. The cards can then be used to write out your shopping list.

When you have to run to the store several times because you forgot something, you often leave the store spending $35 even though you only needed one $3 item. Here is a trick that can help. Make up a list of the items you purchase most frequently. Group the items by department - produce, frozen, dairy, canned goods, dry goods, household, etc. Then save the list on your computer or make copies. When you are ready to make out your shopping list just put a check by the items you need that week. You can leave a few blank spaces in each group to write in items that were not on your master list.

Once you get the food home you need to eliminate any waste. Items that can spoil should be used early in the week. If you frequently throw out fresh vegetables before you have a chance to cook them, purchase frozen vegetables instead. They taste fresh and will last for months in the freezer. Along the same line, canned fruit will not spoil like fresh fruit does, so consider replacing some of the fresh fruit you buy with canned fruit. There is a good variety of canned fruit to choose from - things like single serving fruit cocktail and individual strawberry applesauce. Even if the cost per ounce is a little more, if less is wasted it could save you in the long run.

Try to use all of your leftovers. You would never throw a $5 bill in the trash, but it is no different than throwing half a pan of lasagna in the trash. Remember - The freezer is your friend. Divide leftovers into single serving microwavable containers and freeze. You can take the containers to work and enjoy a free lunch. If you have a recipe that calls for a small onion and all you have is a large onion, chop the large onion up, use half in your recipe and freeze the other half. Next time you need a small chopped onion for a recipe it will be there for you. Many foods are freezable, so get them frozen before they go bad.

Some families eat out frequently because of the convenience. If you find this is the case, simply having food available for a couple of easy dinners could help - things like grilled cheese sandwiches and canned soup, or frozen pizza and a salad. Don’t let your pantry get too low or you will be more tempted to eat out.

Bringing your lunch to work at least four days per week is a good habit. Breakfast should be eaten at home and the coffee stop should be an occasional treat instead of a daily event.

By Michelle Siebert / http://www.endofyourmoney.com
Ms. Siebert has over twenty years of financial management experience. Her website End of Your Money.com was created to provide families with information that will help them become financially strong and confident about their future. It contains information on how to budget, reduce expenses, and increase income.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michelle_Siebert

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Boost your career with Free Magazines

John — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:49:48 +0000

Many business and technology career paths have periodicals (magazines) that report information about those industries. Some people already receive those periodicals at their place of business. If you would like to receive those periodicals at home, or receive your own personal copy at work, go to magazines.com and order them. A lot of the magazine publishers allow you to order these periodicals from their web sites, but magazines.com brings them all together at one place.

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Free Software…that really works

John — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:37:00 +0000

Looking for something for nothing? You can get free software that actually works.

Freebelist.com has links to many different types of software. They have broken their site into sections, such as:

Actually, there are many more, but the point of my eb site is to point out where new things are, not to duplicate those web sites.

Go over to freebielist.com and see for yourself.

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Create Free PDF Docs Online

John — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:00:00 +0000

The PDF format is one of the most common formats for trading and distributing documents online today. You can download a reader easily. In addition, web browsers allow for built-in readers, making consuming PDFs more accessible.

Of course, if you can’t make PDFs, you’ve got a problem. You won’t be able to share your documents with everyone, as not everyone has Microsoft Office.

You can make PDF documents from a wide variety of formats online for free. Check out pdfonline.com. Some of the supported input formats are doc, rtf, ppt, xls, txt, and more.

Make your documents readable by everyone
PDF is a universal, safe and virus-free document format that can be opened by anybody with free Acrobat Reader. With PDF, you can be sure that the document thay your readers see is exactly what you have sent out.
Free high quality PDF output
Powered by our own PDF .NET server development toolkit, PDF Online servers can quickly produce high quality PDF with very minimum maintenance.
Reliable PDF conversion from anywhere and at anytime in the world
If you need PDF in a hurry, PDF Online is your friend. After you submit your document, you will get the PDF back in a matter of minutes.
Enable you to view documents that you can’t open
Have you ever receive a document that you can’t open because you don’t have the right software? Then use PDF Online convert it to PDF. PDF Online can quickly convert all MSOffice document formats and popular graphic formats (such as JPEG, TIFF, BMP) to PDF.
Nothing to Install
PDF Online is an online service and you don’t have to install anything to use it. Perfect if you are traveling and need to convert document to PDF in places that don’t allow application installation, such as Internet Cafes.

Check it out for yourself, then let us know how it worked out for you.

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Digest for 09/08/08

admin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:06:01 +0000

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Spending Less 101

Digest for 10/06/08

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Settling Credit Card Debt

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Digest for 09/22/08

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Download A Free Movie

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Use paper, not plastic

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Last ditch “spend no money” effort

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Don’t point that credit card at me…

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Digest for 09/15/08

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5 Strategies to Teach Your Children About Saving Money

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Find out why saving money depends on you making a budget

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Decorate your desktop without spending any money

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Make Your Own A/C

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Cut Your Grocery Bill

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Boost your career with Free Magazines

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Free Software…that really works

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Create Free PDF Docs Online

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Digest for 09/08/08

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