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Thursday is For Saving and Giving… and Gratitude too.
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Financial security is something many of us may not realize until much later and a lot of work to be debt free. But does that mean we are not saving and giving? No, I think it means we save something and give something and together that will increase our gratitude about where we are going on our financial path.
Debt free will definitely make us feel more grateful. But it is important to establish a practice of giving and saving long before becoming debt free. The 10-10-80 theory is one that is manageable and I am going to start trying harder to practice it. Ten percent of my income to savings. Ten percent of my income giving. Living on 80 percent of my income and no more charging. Promise. And to prove it, I cancelled one of my credit cards today. It was paid off and had way too much temptation on it so ZIP ZAP cut the sucker up and called them to cancel it. Whoo hooo. One step closer to paying cash and being debt free.
Your assignment this week is to pick one credit card with the smallest balance. Decide when you can have this balance paid off and mark it on the calendar. Next, look at the one place you have decided to give a donation to. Mark it on your calendar every month with a star so you are committed to giving something to this organization every month. Next week we will add savings to the calendar. Until then……
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- Thursday’s Giving and Saving
- Friday – Debt Reduction Here We Come
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March 15, 2012
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Wednesday is for Investing.
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Investing is such an overwhelming topic for most women. I know until recently, I haven’t given it much thought. I did some casual investing over the last 10 years and have been able to use that money for a vacation but I have not seriously invested in my retirement because I am married.
What does that have to do with anything is my feeling now. I love my husband but I clearly should have been working on my own retirement savings and now I am playing catch up. My goal for retirement is slightly different then his and here is why. Men look at retirement differently than women. It only makes sense that we should look at money differently as well.
What are your retirement goals, or have you given it much thought? I am not convinced that I need the million and a half that the experts say I need but I know that I need enough for my living expenses, medical expenses, and some entertainment. And I also know that I cannot rely totally on my husband and his retirement. First it isn’t enough and second it isn’t fair to him.
So, I am looking into adding to my retirement from my employer. But what if you don’t have a retirement at your job or if you loose your job. It might behoove you to investigate opening your own retirement account through an independent financial company. I am investigating several, Fidelity is a common and reliable one and there are so many more. Your homework for this week is to think about and talk about your retirement goals. Find out what is available through your employer. Next week we will begin looking at individual companies and their products. Until then……
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- Wednesday’s Investing Post
- Investing
- Friday’s View on Investing.
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Tuesday should be Titled Late Again…..
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Tuesday slipped right by me because of deadlines that I could not get away from. Most of you probably know how that feels… a looming date or time for something that you procrastinate about. Dealing with insurance portfolios can be one of those items that you procrastinate about.
Insurance should be one of those things you DO NOT procrastinate about. Here is what happens. We neglect checking on our insurance portfolios because we know in the back of our minds we are covered. We don’t know exactly how we are but we are positive that if we have a policy and we have been paying premiums, there is no way we are not covered.
The truth of the matter is this, most of us are either over insured or under insured but only a small percent of Americans have just the coverage they need. Wow, that is something to think about with the tornado damage our neighbors have endured in the Midwest or the flooding our fellow Americans have suffered in the south. Or how about those who have had a serious accident and didn’t know that there coverage was limited?
It is time to stop procrastinating about insurance. This can be a stressful time of year because of it being TAX time but add this to your homework for this week. Check your insurance policies. You job is to find them and file them all together so you know exactly what policies you have and the contact information for each policy. Not a tough assignment but one many neglect. Make a master list of the policies and the addresses and phone numbers of each of the policies. This will make it easier if you need those numbers in a hurry or an emergency. Make sure that all of the policies are current and up to date. This is one big step to being both organized and current with your insurance. Until next time….
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- Inventory list, check. Enough Coverage….?
- Tuesday… How is the state of your insurance coverage?
- Happy Halloween and What about Insurance?
- How Much is Too Much Insurance?
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March 12, 2012
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Monday: Spring Forward…into Financial Freedom
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Monday is here again, and here in the Midwest we moved our clocks forward to daylight savings time. I love this time of year because it gives you the feeling of fresh air, fresh ideas, and kind of a second chance for making good on all those New Year’s resolutions or promises you made at the beginning of the New Year. This is the perfect opportunity to evaluate your financial plan too.
The first quarter of the year is almost behind us. It is the perfect time to look at how you are doing with saving money and find fresh ways to look for savings in the next 3 months. Evaluating the plan every 3 months keeps things fresh and new, and helps you to see progress. It can also offer you the opportunity to adjust things that are not working for your budget so changes can be made.
I have added several small writing gigs to my income this last three months. Have you added any additional income to your budget? If not, consider these simple ways to add extra change.
1. Clean out your closet and consider taking clothing items to a second hand boutique. You will receive a small amount of money in exchange for a clutter free closet.
2. Consider planting a small garden or patio potted garden for items like tomatoes, herbs, and peppers. These are wonderful items to add to salads for the summer and can offer you some down time as you tend to your plants as well as savings.
3. Consider watching the grocery adds for spring, Easter, and Summer grocery sales. Stock up on items that can be stored to avoid paying higher prices later on items that you need all summer.
4. Decrease the amount of cleaning supplies you buy. It will help you to use less chemicals and decrease your grocery bill. Google natural and homemade soap, cleaning , chemical free cleaning, low cost cleaning supplies, or other key words for recipes for making your own liquid soap. Vinegar, lemon juice, borax, and vanilla are some of the natural items often used in cleaning. Vinegar and water for instance makes great window cleaner.
Look for new ideas for you budget and new ways to save a few pennies. Your assignment for this week is to find one good cleaning solution you can make at home and to share your recipe here. We will combine your information in a free handout for our readers . Share what you know… it will help us all to live a debt free and cleaner life.
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- Monday: Budget Meeting
- Monday again!
- Free Things to Do with Your Kids This Summer—Spend Your Summer at the Library
- Eating Healthy and Saving Money?
- Happy New Year..
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March 10, 2012
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Friday’s Debt Reduction Ideas:
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How did your week work out for you with your financial plan towards debt reduction?
I found an idea that helped me this week but most of you probably already have considered it. It is carpooling. I found a nurse who works at the same hospital as I, we work many of the same days, and have decided to share rides. Whoo hoo, Saved each of us a tank of gas this week. She drives one day, I drive the next. We work 3 twelve hour shifts a week and each have to drive only two times. ( There is one day a week we don’t work the same days.) But at 60 miles one way, it will save each of us a tank of gas.
I have also been reading some great tips from author and money saving guru, Mary Hunt. Mary Hunt has authored several books; her newest book will be out soon titled 7 Money Rules for Life. One of the suggestions she made in Woman’s Day magazine this month was to find a debt buddy.
Finding a debt buddy is such good advice. It gives you the opportunity to check in with a friend at the end of each week as you both try to get your financial life in order. A buddy can be objective, encouraging, and maybe offer you advice for saving money that a partner might be too close to see.
Your assignment this week. Check out www.debtproofliving.com and find one way to add the advice of Mary Hunt into your debt reduction plan.
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- Friday – Debt Reduction Here We Come
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- Thursday’s Post: Saving and Giving
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March 9, 2012
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Thursday’s Giving and Saving
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Thursday’s posts are centered around giving and saving, a tough topic with gas prices at almost 4 dollars a gallon. However, I firmly believe that giving opens you up for receiving and saving protects your future.
Yesterday’s post mentioned the opportunity for investing with your tax return. A tax return check is also a great opportunity to build your savings account and to offer just a little something for someone in need. Consider the reality of giving and saving. If you receive a tax refund of say 500.00 and save even half of that, you are on your way to your emergency fund that most financial experts agree you should have. Once you have a little saved, it has a positive influence on your mind set and makes it easier to save the next time you have extra cash.
On the giving side of things, there are numerous places that will take even the smallest donations. Childhood cancer research, the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, the local food pantry, your church, World Vision, Compassion International, Pet rescues, and any number of legitimate places will benefit from even a ten dollar donation.
Giving and Saving is a habit. And it takes at least 21 days of a new activity to make the deed become a habit. If you are paid weekly, that gives you three weeks to begin giving a small token each pay in order to develop the habit of giving. The same with savings. Try to put something away every payday for a month.
List giving and saving as one of your regular monthly bills and begin making giving and saving a habit that can’t be broken. And consider beginning with your income tax refund.
Your assignment this week is to leave a comment and let me know where you have decided your heart is on the giving part of our posts. Where do you want your extra 10 dollars a month to go. Maybe it is something our readers will help you to support.
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- Monday- Budgeting
- Thursday: Giving and Saving
- Thursday: Giving and Saving
- Thursdays Giving and Saving post…
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March 8, 2012
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Investing…And Tax Time.
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Has anyone thought about the possibility that Tax time might be the best time to invest? What better and easier way to find extra cash that you can easily take and invest without interupting the rest of your budget then taking your tax return check. Investing your tax return has several advantages.
1. Your tax return can be invested in a tax free IRA or retirement account.There a several to choose from and I don’t have enough expertise to advise you about what is best for your situation. But if you don’t have a personal investment account, find a financial adviser or do you research and make that your investment for your future. Fidelity is an example of an reliable investment firm where you can actully research, invest, and have monthly payments automatically withdrawn with a simple phone call. You can always reach a real person and their site is user friendly. I do have personal experience with this company and have never had a problem.
2. Investing part or all of your tax return at this time of year gives you 9 more months in this year to gain on your investment. The fact that this is an election year can play in your favor too as the markets are looking stronger and the gain has started to show.
3. If you get more than one thousand dollars back in your tax return, consider investing part of it and using the rest to pay down a debt. Avoid the impulse to buy something extravagant that you really don’t need, and opt for paying off a debt instead. The money saved on interest payments may be very beneficial in the long term.
What better time to at least look at where you can invest? Your tax advisor may have some suggestions about what would be a financial plus for your future. At least give it some thought. Your assignment this week is to evaluate where your tax return check would do the most good for your financial portfolio. My guess is isn’t in that big screen TV you think you need. Just saying.
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- Investing Wednesday.
- How Your Economic State Affects Your Investing Risk Tolerance
- Thursdays Topic: Investing
- Wow, Stocks are Down, Now What?
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March 6, 2012
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Tuesday… Insurance to the Rescue
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The insurance that you carry for your home, your health, and your auto is designed to come to your rescue when things go wrong. Is that what happens, not always. Take the case of the child who has cancer and needs a medication that is 2500.00 a dose or the teen who is brain injured and is not showing signs of improvement so the rehabilitation hospital will no longer keep him as a patient so he must be put in a long term care facility. These are real life scenarios that have happened over the course of my experience and in both cases Insurance tapped out.
No one wants to think that a life changing incident could devastate the family finances and deplete the health insurance coverage they thought they had. But life happens and the only way to deal with it is to be prepared.
Check with your insurance agent and find out today what your coverage is and what the cap on the payout is. This is an essential piece of your financial portfolio that you need to know and hopefully will never need ot use. If you find that you have a low lifetime amount on your health insurance, please do your research and shop around for a policy that has a higher cap amount on your health insurance payment. A life changing illness or injury can cost thousands of dollars a year to maintain and care for your loved one.
Your assignment for the week. Research this topic and make sure you have the coverage you think you do for critical and life changing illness or injury coverage on every family member.
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- Tuesday… How is the state of your insurance coverage?
- Healthcare Reforms are Being Challenged, What That Means to Women
- Make Insurance Part of Your Financial Plan
- How Much is Too Much Insurance?
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March 5, 2012
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Budget Monday
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I am a writer and I happen to love outlines and lists. I look at the budget I make as a kind of outline for my spending. Sometimes the money goes much further on paper than it does in real life, but as I get more disciplined with my own budget, it seems to be lining up.
Budgeting doesn’t have to be painful. And you can actually start small. If you don’t think you can handle doing the entire budget at first, then break it down into small budgets or outlines. Make categories for your ” mini budgets”. Categories might include:
Food
Entertainment
Utilities
Mortgage
Phone
Credit cards
You get the idea. Let’s say you want to start small and you pick your first category and decide it will be PHONE. First, research where you can slim your phone bill down. Ask yourself if you need a land line along with your cell phone, or if you need all that your current cell phone plan includes. Try to trim 10-20 dollars off the bill. Next, budget for the average amount that your last 3 months worth of bills equals. For sake of an example, let’s say your average phone bill for all your phones is 200 dollars a month. I over estimate my budget and then take the extra money and put it on my debt. If you budget for a 200 dollar bill and the bill next month is only 186.00 that gives you 14.00 dollars to put towards your debt.
This is how debt gets paid down faster. Put every extra dollar that you save by budgeting and put that amount towards your debt. Don’t spend it in any other way.
Your assignment for next week is this: Begin budgeting on paper. Start with your first category and estimate the amount you will need to pay this debt. Then estimate how much you will have extra if you can trim that amount and begin looking for ways to start trimming. Work on one category at a time so you don’t feel overwhelmed and don’t get discouraged. You will be surprised at how much you can actually trim from each category each week.
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- Monday- Budgeting
- Starting Small Leads to Big Savings
- Monday’s Budget Post…. When my Budget is Broken….
- Basics of Budgeting: Identify Your Bills
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March 3, 2012
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Friday’s End of the Week Debt Reduction Post
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Debt reduction can be a real source of stress in some families. Although the media would like you to believe that the economy is improving, and it might be, those who have enormous debt may not see it.
When you are behind on several bills including utilities, credit cards, phone, or mortgage it can be difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to seeing yourself debt free. There was a time 7 or 8 years ago that I was in that darkness. Although I am not debt free yet, I at least can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And from a nurse’s viewpoint let me state here and now…you should never let money problems alone bring you to the depths of despair emotionally. There is always a way legal way out and your life and your family are more important than any money issues.
That being said, if you did your homework last week you now have a list of the debt you want to work on decreasing. Make sure you keep to your plan by putting the extra cash you have saved towards that debt and keep making the minimum payments on the other bills. If you are in debt twice the amount of your mortgage, consider speaking with a financial attorney to see if bankruptcy is a valid choice for you. However, keep in mind there are hundreds of people out there who have become debt free with enormous amounts of debt way into six figures. It takes discipline and hard work but it can be done.
My first debt is less than 1000.00. My goal is to have it paid off by June. This is doable for me but may not be doable in that amount of time for you depending on your income. Be realistic with your goals so you will feel successful quickly. Keep working on it and chipping away until you have the first goal met, then re-evaluate.
Look at what you have accomplished this week on your financial plan. Decide what worked and what can still be tweaked. Try to save another ten dollars next week to add to your debt reduction plan. Until next week…. think about what you have and count your blessings.
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- Friday – Debt Reduction Here We Come
- Friday: Debt Reduction
- Friday’s Debt Reduction Ideas:
- Start Your New Year’s Debt Resolution Before the New Year Starts
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