Getting in shape financially is a lot like getting in shape physically. Success depends on planning, goals, discipline, and accountability. You often hear about people having success with their fitness when they partner up with a friend because they do not want to leave their friend hanging to work out alone. The same accountability idea [...]
Continue reading...2. September 2010
If saving up a nice chunk of cash was as easy as saying we ought to, most people would have already put away a nest egg, a rainy day fund, and a bunch of spending money to top it off. The reality is that most people struggle to discipline themselves in improving their saving habits. [...]
Continue reading...30. August 2010
Savings are a great thing and a goal everyone should have in their money strategy. However, there are times when it makes more sense to use money that would be put into savings towards other things, like paying down credit card debt. While many people keep savings and credit card expenses separate in their heads, [...]
Continue reading...27. August 2010
You might have noticed that your bank has been bothering you lately with letters, emails, and calls asking you to join their overdraft protection program. You might have thought that most accounts already have overdraft protection. Up until now, they did, but according to new U.S. laws taking effect this summer, banks have to get [...]
Continue reading...24. August 2010
One of the largest challenges of turning around a tough financial situation is the size of the task. When everything is a mess, it is hard to see anything but a towering mountain of debt, expenses, and numbers that sound completely unrealistic. Breaking everything down into smaller pieces is the best way around this sense [...]
Continue reading...21. August 2010
Too many people get into financial trouble by not thinking through the consequences of major decisions. To avoid this, try living through the consequences rather than just thinking about them before making a big decision in the future. What this means is setting up a trial run of the financial consequences of big decisions to [...]
Continue reading...18. August 2010
The complex nature of today’s financial world can make it easy to get lost in fantasy and not understand the financial realities we face. Credit cards allow us to accumulate purchases and seemingly only have to pay a small portion at the end of the month. A lack of savings does not seem like a [...]
Continue reading...15. August 2010
It is easy for us to say we want to save more, but it is a different story to put your money where your mouth is. Too often it is a struggle once we have a full paycheck in our hands to do the right thing and avoid needless spending. To take this issue off [...]
Continue reading...12. August 2010
The high unemployment rate and foreclosure crisis are serving to hurt the credit scores of millions of Americans. Your credit score is a guage of how lenders view you as a credit risk, and traditionally bad credit was akin to the scarlet letter as illustrated by Nathaniel Hawthorne. However, with so many Americans suffering foreclosures [...]
Continue reading...9. August 2010
The current national unemployment rate is approaching 10%. In many areas, it is already much higher than that. Experts advise that this “jobless recovery” might continue for some time, and those seeking jobs are now commonly having to expand their geographic horizons. To highlight this current trend of moving where the jobs are, Kiplinger Finance [...]
Continue reading...
5. September 2010
0 Comments