Some say it’s tacky to give cash as a present. Gift cards to a restaurant or store are also problematic, as you don’t know if the other person shops there. So then the solution is to give them a debit gift card, right? It can be loaded with $100 and the receiver can spend it anywhere they want. But not so fast, debit gift cards might not be as good as you think. Here’s why.

1. These cards come with an activation fee. So if you want to buy a $100 card you’ll have to pay $105 for it. Those $5 are completely thrown away, as you get nothing from it.
2. Using two forms of payment. When the card doesn’t have enough money in it to complete your purchase, you’ll have to pay the remaining balance with another form of payment. This could be a hassle for you, some businesses might not be able to accommodate or it can be embarrassing, as it may appear to others that your card has been declined.
   
3. Restaurant usage. If you go out with friends planning to use your $100 gift card and accumulate a bill of over $90, you won’t be able to charge all of it with your card. The card will only allow you to charge 80% of the amount on the card at restaurants. so only $80 can be charged on it.
4. Online usage. Debit gift cards cannot be used for online purchases. If you like to do comparison shopping and find good deals online, you will not be able to use it. These cards only work by physically presenting the card and sliding it through the credit card scanner.

Do you like giving gift cards as presents? why or why not?

Many people make plenty of money to live comfortably, but they struggle to make ends meet each month. It is a paradox that leaves people complaining about the high cost of living and wondering where all of their money is going each month. If this sounds familiar to you, the fact is that you may simply be wasting your money when you could be saving it. You can make a ton of money each month, but you may be “cash poor” if you spend every last dime you have. With every dollar you earn, you have the choice to spend the money or to save it. So how can you stop wasting your money and keep your cash in your own hands?

Watch What You Are Buying

One of the biggest complaints many people have is that their money just seems to disappear almost as soon as they get a paycheck. The money is not disappearing, of course. It is gone because you are spending it. If you are not sure where the money is going, this is a sure sign that your spending is wasteful. Consider how hard you work for your money and how easily you let that money go. Rather than throw money needlessly away, make a conscious decision to be more aware of what you are buying. One strategy to consider involves keeping a journal of all of your purchases for the next week or two. This may not be necessary if you have access to an online banking feature that creates customizable reports. Add up the purchases that were “wants” rather than “needs” at the end of that time period, and you will see exactly how much money you are wasting.

Create a Budget

Many people have created a budget at some point in their lives, but they haven’t properly utilized it. Consider creating a new budget that itemizes all income sources and all expenses. Your budget should not be based on ideals, such as how much you would like to spend on gas. Instead, it should be based on realistic and truthful figures. If you are overspending, lying to yourself by putting false numbers in your budget will not help you out. Instead, create a realistic budget that shows how your money is really being spent. You can reduce expenses where necessary to adjust your budget. Shopping for lower insurance rates, following money-saving tips for grocery shopping, reducing energy consumption at home and more are all ways to reduce spending.

Give Yourself an Allowance

One of the areas that many people have trouble with is overspending with those small expenses here and there. A cup of coffee bought every morning and a lunch or dinner out at a restaurant periodically can add up to hundreds of dollars over the course of a month. Put yourself on a spending allowance that falls in line with your budget. Some people will take out their allowance in cash at the beginning of each month. When the money is gone, they are done spending until the following month. Others are using prepaid credit cards to control spending.

When you take steps to budget more effectively and reduce wasteful spending, you can save money each month. You may use this money to fund a savings account or to reduce debts. Many who have spent wastefully in the past have accumulated debt as a result of their spending habits. If you want to get out of debt, these tips can serve as an excellent starting point.

You can also obtain a debt guide from www.debt.ca to learn more about personal spending and saving habits and to explore options and strategies for eliminating debt.

It’s unfortunate to see people who are aging in the workforce be forced into beginning a new career. Such events are becoming more commonplace nowadays. Sometimes industries go on the decline and employers have to make cuts. Other times workers age and can no longer handle the heavy workload. So when choosing a career it’s important to choose one that both has longetivy and that you can continue to work in well into your 60′s and beyond.

Choose one of the careers on the list below and you can possibly stay with the same employer until you decide to retire.

Teacher

There will always be a demand for teachers. Currently there are lots of job cuts in education but this cannot last forever. The good thing about the teaching profession is that it’s a good fall-back career. You can get a bachelors degree and if you can’t find employment in your expertise you can try and become a teacher instead.

The teaching profession isn’t one that requires much physical work. Thus teachers can and often times do work well past retirement age.

Chef

No matter how much technology advances people will always need to eat. There needs to be someone who creates and prepares meals for restaurants, schools or parties. If you love to be in the kitchen preparing meals, this might be the career for you. As long as people love to eat and hate to cook, there will always be a demand for chefs.

There’s no age limit for being a chef. An older chef will have experience on his or her side over a young chef. Unlike many other occupations, there isn’t much of a stigma against older chefs.

Tax Preparer

As long as there is the IRS people will need their taxes done. April is the busy month for this profession but people have tax issues the entire year. You can work at places like H&R Block once you have your certification or you can even start your own business.

As long as you stay in the know about the latest changes to the tax law you can continue to offer your services for as long as you want to continue working.

Health Care

While other industries may come and go, the medical profession is here to stay forever. There’s a wide variety of health care jobs with an abundance of opportunities including: registered nurse, home health aide, medical assistant and pharmacist.

Jobs in the health care field are in high demand and workers can and often times continue to work into their 60′s and beyond.

Can you believe it’s already spring time again? It seems like it was just yesterday we were making New Year’s resolutions about cutting back on our spending or slashing our debt. How are those coming along so far? If you’re already off track you are not alone. Most people break their resolutions a few weeks into the new year.

But indeed, spring time is upon again this year already. Spring is a team we clear out the back yard of debris, get rid of old clothes in the closet, wipe the windows down and clean behind the couch and under the bed. So why not clean up your finances this time of year too, especially if you haven’t kept up with your New Year’s resolutions.

Here is a to-do list of items you should try and take care of this time of year.

Credit Report

Every year you’re entitled to get a free look at your credit report at annualcreditreport.com. Don’t go to the other websites you see on those television commercials because those sites will let you see your credit report as well as score for “free” as long as you sign up for another service that carries a monthly fee. Not so free now is it? So make sure to only go to annualcreditreport.com.

Look at your report to see if there are any inaccuracies items. If there are, you can contact the credit bureaus to have them fix the errors. You can also use the report to see if you’ve been the victim of identity theft.

Interest Rates

Check the interest rates on your credit card to see if they have been jacked up. If they have increased you can contact them to have it lowered. If that doesn’t work then you can give that card priority and pay it off as soon as possible.

It’s a good time of year to check mortgage interest rates. If rates are very low (and they currently are) you may want to refinance your mortgage if you have a high rate. It’s generally a good idea to refinance if your current rate is more than 1% higher than the current rate.

Review Policies

It’s that time of year again to review your insurance policies. If you sold a car recently make sure you’re still not paying insurance for it. If you have multiple cars make sure they’re all with the same insurance company so you can get a multi-vehicle discount.

If you’re the sole breadwinner for your family you may want to look at getting life insurance. While it’s an added expense, if life insurance fits within your budget it can really help your family if the worst were to happen.

As for your homeowners insurance, if you want to save some money, you can increase your deductible to lower your premiums. It’s also a good time of year to see if you are adequately insured, just in case.

College is as expensive as it’s ever been. With tuition rates on the rise yet again college is becoming almost impossible to afford without accruing tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.

But don’t despair just yet. There’s a way that you or your children can still afford to go to college. Here are some tips to help pay for college.

Savings Account

There’s a little known savings account you can get called a 529 college savings account. A parent can open one of these accounts for their kids any time they want to, whether they’re an infant or already in high school. This type of savings account is great because every dime you deposit into this account is a tax deduction. You also don’t pay a penny of taxes on the interest you accrue.

Financial Aid

Every school has a financial aid department. Apply for assistance and see how much you can get. Typically, the lower you and your family’s income is the more help you will get.

Scholarships

Stellar athletes may get a free ride for four years at the university of their choice. But there are other scholarships that don’t rely on how good of a jumpshot you have. If you have good grades you may be able to qualify for a variety of scholarships that may not pay for all of your tuition, but can certainly help.

Student Loans

If you’ve exhausted all other options up to this point, your last resort is to take out a loan. The good thing about a student loan though is that you don’t have to pay it back until you’re done with your studies.

Trimming Expenses

You can save while you’re in college in a wide variety of ways. You can reduce your entertainment expenses by renting movies via RedBox for $1 rather than buying the DVD. You can listen to music for free on Pandora.

To save money on school supplies like books for school, rent textbooks like this one instead of buying them at full price.

I’ve always felt that schools should educate the youth on practical things like personal finance, rather than on memorization of facts. But this responsibility falls solely on the shoulders of parents. TD Bank recently surveyed 1,637 parents to discover some facts on the financial knowledge of parents and how, if at all, parents are educating their children about financial matters.

Here are some of the more interesting facts I found in the survey by the numbers.

• 34% – The amount of parents who rated their knowledge of financial matters as good (or better). This low number isn’t surprising. If anything, I’m surprised at the honesty of those polled.
  
• 10% – How much more confident men were than women in their financial knowledge. This doesn’t mean it’s true, it just means that men are more confident about it.
• 52% – The percentage of women feel like they (rather than their husband) are the ones who take the lead when teaching their children on finances.
• 35% – The percentage of men felt their family didn’t need a budget
• 22% – The percentage of women who felt their family didn’t need a budget.
• 55% – Percentage of families who say they are talking to their children about money more now than before the recession.

You don’t need an expensive gym membership, workout DVD’s or diet books to lose weight. You can stay physically fit for free if you follow the tips in this post.

• Park further away. Always chase after that coveted spot in front of the store? Park far away and walk the calories away.
• Take the stairs. Work on the third floor? Take the stairs instead and get a quick workout. It’s the same as the stairmaster, just free.
• Walk. Going to the grocery store around the corner? Walk to the store instead of taking your car. You’ll burn calories instead of burning fuel.
  
• Drink water. Throughout the day, drink a lot of water. Always keep water with you, whether you’re at home or at work.
• Move around. If your job requires you to sit in front of a computer by a desk all day, try moving around as much as you can.  You can stretch your arms and legs or move around in your chair, but just try to keep moving.
• Snack wisely. Instead of snacking on chips or cookies, bring an apple or a banana to work so you have some energy food nearby.

What money saving healthy tips do you have to share?

It’s no secret that young drivers insurance premiums can be painfully high – it’s a sad fact that drivers under 25 are more likely to be involved in an accident than an older driver and this statistic drives up the cost of insurance. There’s no escaping the reality of harsher premiums as a young driver, but many new drivers just accept that there’s nothing they can do to effect just how much they get hit by them. Happily, this is a fallacy and there are a number of things you can do that will help drive down your premiums. Here are three of them:

Drive Safely

The most obvious is, of course, to drive safely. For those hitting the road solo for the first time the rush can often lead to the temptation to be reckless: choke back this urge if you want to keep your premiums down and avoid having to make a claim early on in your insurance policy. You should also be wary of picking up bad habits such as using your mobile phone behind the wheel that can get you hit with a fine if you’re caught and push up your premiums.

Get Good Grades

Younger drivers who are still in school can get a discount on their auto insurance policy by getting good grades. The insurance companies know that students who get good grades are more responsible than those who don’t. Thus, the good students are less of a risk while on the road. The lower the risk the lower the premiums.

Be A Second Driver

If your parents are drivers, consider asking them to be a second driver on your insurance policy: having a second older and more experienced driver on your policy can bring premiums down. Alternatively you could become a named driver on their insurance policy for the same effect, but you won’t be able to build up a no claims bonus this way.

These are just two tips that can help lower young drivers insurance premiums, but there are many others. Speak to an insurer for more information on the criteria they use to determine premiums.

After every Christmas season your stockings are surely full of presents you certainly appreciate, but do not necessarily want. If you receive an ugly sweater with no gift receipt your options are limited. But if you get a gift card you don’t want, you have several options. You can use it, trade it or sell it.

Use Your Gift Cards

If you receive a gift card that you don’t want, you can still choose to use it. Visit the store online and see if there is anything they sell that interests you. Since the person who gave you this present has already spent their money on the gift card, you really shouldn’t throw it away. Another way of “using” your gift card is by re-gifting it to someone else who you think will appreciate it.

Trade Your Gift Card

Finding someone who wants to trade gift cards with you is a daunting task. You can ask your friends or relatives soon after the holidays but I doubt you’ll have any luck. But you can now trade your gift cards online with ease. Sites like CardHub.com and PlasticJungle.com are popular sites where users can list what gift cards they have and what they want in exchange for them. GiftCardRescue.com is a good option if you want to trade your gift card for an Amazon.com gift certificate. The reason being that they will give you an additional 5% if you opt to get paid in the form of an Amazon gift card. If you choose that option they will email you a claim code for you to use on Amazon.com.

Sell It

By far the most popular option when you receive an unwanted gift card is to sell it. There are a variety of sites that create a seamless process for you to sell your gift card and get paid. Some sites pay via Paypal, others pay with a check and yet others can offer you Amazon gift cards. Some of the most popular sites to sell your gift card at include GiftCardCastle.com and CardPool.com. Another site, ABCGiftCards.com will offer to give you more than any other site for your gift card. They can also pay you via Paypal and will even reimburse you Paypal’s processing fees. Finally, the most common way of selling your unwanted gift card is by using the tried and trusted method of eBay.

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Every year you come up with a New Years resolution and inevitably every year it’s already broken by the end of the month. Perhaps you would have a better success rate if you realized that your new years resolution had a dual purpose. Namely, you’ll achieve your goal and save money while doing it. Let me give you a few examples on how changing a few of your bad habits can translate into big savings.

• Smoking. It seems like every year there’s a new tax added to cigarettes. You can pay up to 10 bucks per pack nowadays. How’s that for a cash incentive to stop smoking. Reduce your bad smoking habit to 1 less pack per week. You’ll save $520 ($10 x 52 weeks) per year.
  
• Alcohol. Water will cost you a few cents while alcohol costs 10 – 20 times as much. If you go out with friends and order $7 drinks every week, have one less than you would normally have. You’ll save $364 ($7 x 52 weeks) per year.
• Family time. If your resolution is to spend some more time with your family, you can do that at home watching movies together, playing video games or board games. Possible savings could be $240 ($20 x 12 months) per year.
• Coffee. Getting your caffeine fix doesn’t have to break the bank. Instead of going to Starbucks for a $3.50 cup of coffee choose to make it at home or get one at a fast food joint for a buck. You’ll save $400 ($2 x 200 cups per year) per year.
• Food. Learn to eat less. If you always get a large combo meal, go for the small. If you always get fries and a soda to go with your burger, just get the burger with no fries. You could save $200 ($1 x 200 meals) per year.

What kind of new years resolutions have you done that reduced costs in your life?