Unexpected Places to Save
There are so many ways to painlessly save it can almost make you dizzy. But why should we save, anyway?
First, emergencies can hit you at any time. You can’t always know when your water heater might give up the ghost, or your dog will need medical attention. Savings can avoid the second reason to save-debt. If you have a bit of extra cash in the bank, you won’t start accumulating debt when those emergencies occur. Third, what about the future? Some day, you may want to buy a house, take a great family vacation, or have a family. These are all great reasons to plan a stash.
Here are some ways you can save without feeling a pinch.
Stop grocery shopping at the five-and-dime. Make a grocery list and keep it posted on the fridge. Every person in the family can add to it. Then go to the grocery store-once a week-and buy just what’s on the list. Take only enough cash to pay for the groceries to keep yourself from splurging.
Watch when you use the most electricity. Call your utility company and ask them when the off-hours are for electricity use in your area. That’s when you pay the least, and that’s when you can do things like the laundry, vacuum or clean the oven, or other electrically expensive tasks. Turn your heat down or air conditioner up during these periods. And when you do the laundry, only do full loads, and save even more.
Hold a ginormous garage sale. That old saying that you should throw out anything you don’t use in one year can add up to huge bucks. Go through your home room-by-room, and think about more than clothes and toys (but add them too!). What about unused furniture, old equipment and electronics? Ask your neighbors to have their garage sales at the same time-more stuff means more people dropping by, and that can mean more money for you. Make up some lemonade and sell that to people who come by for a few extra bucks.
Check your property taxes. Be sure you’re not being overcharged for your property taxes. You can challenge your assessment, and that can mean a big savings every year.
Save your raise. Did you get a raise this year? Has it disappeared into the money void? Whenever you get a raise or unexpected money, don’t spend it. Put it away for a rainy day.
Buy in bulk. If you use ketchup by the gallon (or anything else for that matter), buy it that way. It can save you a fortune over buying individual bottles-but keep one of those to put your ketchup in.
Stop driving. Okay, that’s not going to happen. But try to plan when and where you drive, rather than making multiple trips. Share pickups and drop-offs of your kids for their sports and other activities with parents who are doing the same thing. Consider ride sharing to work and save gas and wear-and-tear on your vehicle.
Savings can be found in some unexpected places. And it’s important to save for emergencies, to avoid debt, and to be able to plan for your future.
Tax Troubles for Procrastinating
The deadline to file 2009 taxes has just passed. For those procrastinators who have yet to get started, there is help available in the event you are going to file late. If you’re delaying your return because you owe money, there are options. If you cannot afford to pay your entire bill at once, you can contact the Canada Revenue Agency at 1-800-959-8281. This will give you an opportunity to make payment arrangements.
We can all agree that filing our taxes is not something we want to do and the urge to delay can be strong. Claiming what you are entitled to can be incentive to file on time. If you have children in sport and can produce a $500 receipt that entitles you to a $75 credit. House repairs of $2,000 will give you $150 tax back and any donations you’ve made over $200 will spot you an extra $30 on your claim. If you’re filing late or in a hurry, you will most likely miss some very important tax breaks, which means your money remains in the pocket of the government.
So, besides taking your time and filing stress-free to ensure you claim everything you can, there are several additional reasons to get these pesky taxes filed as soon as possible. The only exception to the April 30 deadline is if you or your partner is self-employed. The deadline for filing is then extended to June 15. If, however, you have a balance owing, the Canada Revenue Agency will charge you interest on the outstanding balance as of April 30 as well as slap you with a five per cent late-filing penalty, so once again, it may be a good idea to file by this deadline to avoid any late fee penalties. So, come May 1 for example, someone who owes $1000 will be charged an additional $50 for being late, as well, one per cent of your outstanding balance will be charged for each month your return is late. After 12 months, your file is sent to collections. The government actually keeps track of late-filers, so if you are continually late filing, your penalty fee could be as high as 10 per cent. However, the interest you receive from the Canada Revenue Agency on a refund is currently two per cent lower than the interest you are required to pay if you owe them money.
If you have put off paying your taxes, don’t put it off any longer. Don’t let procrastination mean more money out of your hands and into the hands of the tax man. What are you waiting for? Get filing!
A Primer in Money Management
Concerned about your lack of knowledge of basic financing and how to save and invest your money wisely? So is the Canadian government. The Feds have already pulled together expert teams to address our illiteracy when it comes to money management, and they’re looking for ways to teach Canadians to be savvier about their finances.
School systems across the country are also on the move. They’re looking to introduce classes in finance fundamentals to our children as young as grade four and possibly as early as 2011. What both these moves point out is the reality most of us live everyday-that nobody ever taught us how to manage our money, or how to invest it wisely or well.
Good money management does require a few changes in your thinking, almost certainly a few new habits, and some discipline. To develop good money management skills-like any new skill-you have to practice them until they become ingrained into your lifestyle, and monitor yourself to ensure that the old bad habits don’t creep back in to your life, and send you back down the money hole.
What are your bad habits?
Before you can change anything, you need to know where your money pits are. Try this 30-day challenge. Monitor all your purchases-every one of them!-and keep the receipts. Carry a small book around with you-something you can easily slip into your pocket or handbag, and enter every single thing you buy and where. That includes the soda pop you might buy while strolling through the mall, or the quickie meal you pick up on Friday night on your way home from the grocery store. Track all of it. At the end of the month, see where and how (credit, debit, cash) you make unneeded purchases. Add those up. Are you surprised at the total?
How can you replace bad habits?
Now that you’re aware of your bad habits, start changing them. If you use plastic too much, stop using your credit and debit cards. If cash burns a hole in your pocket, stop carrying it. If walking through the mall on Saturdays always means you spend money needlessly, try going somewhere else-like the park or the library. Only carry your cards or cash when you are making a specific purchase like groceries, or paying a bill. Learn to feel okay about not buying anything, and saying “no” to the kids.
What’s next?
If you’ve stopped those bad habits, you may well feel richer-because you are. But don’t let that newly found money go to waste. Take the money you were frittering, and put it towards paying your highest interest bill. Once that bill is paid off, move to the next highest interest bill, and so on, until your debts are paid.
Money basics start with knowing your own spending patterns, changing the ones that cause you to waste money needlessly, and having the discipline to do things differently.
Oil Spill May Threaten Offshore Drilling Plans
The ever-growing oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico may threaten more than the environment. It will make it significantly harder to open up more coastal areas for oil drilling.
The Gulf oil slick moved within 16 miles of the Mississippi River Delta last week, placing residents from Louisiana to Florida on alert against the possibility of oily beaches, closed harbors and a decimated fishing catch. That makes President Obama’s plan to increase offshore oil drilling a much harder sell.
Such drilling is “clearly not clean enough, after what we saw today,” Florida’s Independent Governor, Charlie Crist — a former drilling proponent — told the Miami Herald Wednesday after flying over the slick. “That’s horrific, and it certainly isn’t safe enough. It’s the opposite of safe.”
Lawmakers from Maryland, Virginia, Rhode Island and Delaware have also expressed concern over offshore drilling following the Gulf disaster.
“The tide has shifted as a result of this spill,” said Kevin Book, a managing director at the research firm ClearView Energy Partners. “It will be much harder to open up any new areas.”
Last month, President Obama said the federal government would begin the process of leasing some areas off the coasts of Virginia, Alaska and maybe Florida to oil companies for drilling.
New offshore drilling in most U.S. waters had been banned since the early 1980s, when mounting public pressure pushed lawmakers into action. A disastrous oil spill off the California coast in 1969 sparked protests that grew into a broader environmental movement, which eventually succeeded in forcing a drilling moratorium.
The ban was renewed each year until 2008. But that year, public outcry over soaring oil prices made it politically impossible to reauthorize.
“Given our energy needs, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel,” Obama said last month. “So today, we’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration, but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources.”
But the federal government can’t open up new areas for drilling all by itself. It needs the approval of the states where the oil will eventually be offloaded, and whose coastlines would be damaged by any spill.
Virginia is the only state so far that doesn’t currently have drilling operations to give the feds the green light.
Book still expects new leases to be awarded, perhaps as soon as 2012. But he predicts that the process, which will include a lengthy public comment period, will now be much more difficult.
Especially given the comments this week from Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J.
Pallone announced that he is “adamantly opposed” to Obama’s plan to expand drilling.
“Advocates of offshore drilling will have a hard time convincing people along the East Coast that they have nothing to fear from drilling in our waters as they see the oil slick moving through the Gulf of Mexico towards the shorelines of three or four states,” he said.
New Jersey’s beaches, packed during the summer with tourists from the greater New York City area, lie just 45 miles from the northern reaches of Virginia’s offshore waters.
But environmental concerns will have to be weighed against two tough realities: America needs more oil sources, and the federal government needs more revenue. Royalties from U.S. offshore drilling currently contribute $10 billion to $12 billion to the federal coffers each year — a sum that would rise if drilling expands.
As for Obama’s offshore drilling plan, the administration still appears to be moving slowly forward.
“The president’s announcement was the beginning, not the end, of a long process,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, when asked if the spill would affect the President’s proposal. “The president does believe that we have to increase domestic production.”
Addicted to Debt
Are you addicted to debt? Can you just not say “no” to spending, and snap up every new bauble that attracts your eye? If you feel like your spending is spinning out of control, you may need some heavy-duty withdrawal tactics to get your life back on the straight and narrow.
Eliminate credit and debit cards
Using plastic for purchases can give the illusion that you have more money than you really do. After all, plastic never wears out. Carrying real green makes the end of the money train a very real experience. When it’s gone, your spending is done. So, get rid of all your plastic, and start using cash to pay for all your purchases and bills.
Admit your debt load
One of the ways we fool ourselves into believing that our financial situation “isn’t all that bad” is by straight denial. We just don’t check-until the debt collector’s knocking at the door-and even then. So, pull out every bill you have stuffed away and ignored. Include your mortgage or rent, in-store credit lines, bank lines of credit, regular monthly bills like the utilities-you name it. Add those debts up to see just how much money you owe. Oh-and don’t forget mom and dad, friends, or other relations you owe money to.
Consider consolidating your debt
One of the biggest problems with debts is that there can be so many of them. That makes them hard to track, and can leave you overwhelmed. Which one do you pay? And that can lead to just giving up on paying anything. Consolidating your debts-even if the monthly payment seems big when you do-can help you get your debts under control. Knowing the amount you have to pay out each month to service that debt may also help you curb your spending urges, too.
Consider your assets
It may seem foolish to think about mortgaging an asset to pay off debts, but sometimes this is a good way to get back on track. Even if it costs you a bit more, in the long run, using assets to pay off debt can be a good choice. And, it’s an especially good choice if you’re up against the wall on your credit cards, have stopped paying your bills, or are thinking about bankruptcy.
Consider a vehicle title loan
If you have bad credit, own your vehicle, and it’s less than eight years old, you may be eligible for a car title loan. It’s an easy application you make online, and can be approved in less than 24 hours. You could qualify for as much as 40% of the wholesale value of your vehicle. And that cash can go a long way to bailing you out of financial trouble. Apply today, and your loan could be direct deposited into your account by tomorrow. You can withdraw that cash and pay off a lot of debts by tomorrow night. And get your life back on the straight and narrow.
Is There a Secret to the Rich Being so Rich?
Have you ever wondered how the rich get so rich? Have you sat and wondered if there’s a secret, and if so, what the secret is? Believe it or not, there is a secret to obtaining wealth, but it most likely is not what you think. People who have accumulated financial wealth have done so with wise investments and the use of private investment counsel. When you hire a highly qualified private investment expert, you are paying people to personally handle your investments, carefully follow your directions and report back on a regular basis. Surprisingly enough, in most cases, the fees for these services are much less than traditional brokerage fees that you may be paying now.
To the dismay of many, general financial advisors get a hidden ‘trailer fee’ of your portfolio of about 1% annually, on top of the 0.4% commission fee. When the mutual fund companies’ own fees are also included, you will pay close to 3% a year. Investment council firms generally charge rates of about 1% to 1.5% of assets per year; more than one percentage point lower than what general financial advisors charge.
Hiring an investment counsel is often considered the next step after you’ve worked with a broker or financial planner to grow your portfolio to the stated private counsel minimum, which is usually around seven figures. This may sound like a hefty nest egg, but many Canadians reaching their retirement have managed to put a lot of money away. If you have not reached this financial minimum, many firms are willing to take you on for even less than their stated minimums if they see a lot of potential to grow your portfolio.
Private investment counsel firms will assign a highly qualified representative with a chartered financial analyst (CFA) designation, the investment industry’s most respected designation for managing money. They will go through a rigorous process to specify your risk tolerance, financial constraints, investment objectives and overall guidelines to managing your money (called an investment policy statement or IPS). They will generally provide a monthly report that will compare the performance of your investments to benchmark indices for the over-all market so that you can clearly see how your investments perform compared to the market as a whole. Private investment firms are not a service that’s sold, but rather a service that’s bought. The advice you get is informative and balanced, with no soft peddling of market risks.
There are many private investment firms out there to choose from. If you would like to begin investing, but don’t have any free cash available, you might want to consider a loan. Like with investment firms, selecting a lender should be researched as should fitting payments into your budget.
An Attempt to Save our Petty Cash
It’s difficult for us to save money when we’re not even sure where we’re spending it. According to a survey done by Visa, we spend an average of $21 a week that we cannot account for, which adds up to about $1,000 a year. Compare that with young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 who say they easily misspend an unaccounted $2,500 a year. So, where does our petty cash go?
According to the survey, most adults found the ‘mystery money’ was spent most often when shopping for food and other groceries, while a third of us cannot account for spent money when enjoying a night on the town. One quarter felt that dining out caused them unexplained expenditures.
Regardless, consumers are still losing track of a considerable amount of money each year. Worldwide, the average person is unable to account for 20% of their cash spending which is being blamed on leisure spending, especially when out with family and friends during holiday seasons. Last minute shopping stress is being credited for the over-the-budget purchases and impulse buying is a key factor when it comes to all consumers. There are several ways to prevent those impulse purchases:
The best defence to avoid unwanted purchases is to order online. With internet shopping as common as department store shopping, it’s easy, convenient and eliminates those impulse ’standing-in-line’ purchases. If you have enough time, you can always buy your item through auctions sites such as eBay.
Writing down the names of the people you need to buy for and the maximum amount you can spend on each gift will also help control the petty cash flow. If you are shopping during a major holiday season and will not be seeing these people until afterwards, perhaps waiting to shop is an idea. You will most likely be able to make your purchases with considerable discounts during December and January. At the same time, it is necessary to avoid buying something just because it is on sale.
Another way to avoid petty cash blunders is to give a magazine subscription as a gift. Annual subscriptions generally offer much steeper discounts than buying off the shelf every month. A wrapped magazine with a note of an annual subscription is thoughtful and eliminates the urge to spend on items that are not on the list.
There are many ways to avoid unnecessary purchases and keep track of that annual $1,000 in lost cash. Keep track of your spending habits and you’ll be shocked at how much can be saved.
The Big Ticket Surprise
When your eight-year old complained of a toothache, did you ever think it would turn into an $800 dental bill? Or that an investigation of a crack in your wall would turn out to hold mould, and expensive experts would have to be brought in to clean it up? Unexpected surprises can hit any of us, any time, but when your credit history is weak, or non-existent, it can really be bad news. Where can you turn for an emergency bail out, especially if your credit cards are maxed out, and you just don’t have good enough credit to increase your limit, or open a line of credit?
Consider your assets
You may have more value around your home than you think. Your vehicle-car, truck, SUV, whatever you drive-may be enough to qualify you for a car title loan. A car title loan is especially formulated for people just like you, who have poor credit histories, no credit history, bad credit, maxed out credit cards, or even bankruptcies in their past. It works because you use your car as collateral against the value of the loan. You still get to drive your car, of course, and there’s even another bonus. Because a car title loan is just that-a loan-it goes towards re-building your credit history-and so can help you get back on track to a better credit score.
Car title loan details
A car title loan is easy, fast, and private. You can make the application yourself, online, from the comfort of your favorite living room chair. If you own your car and it’s less than eight years old, you can be almost sure you’ll get approved. People just like you do, about 99% of the time. So, by tomorrow, with your car title loan approved, you could have as much as 40% of the wholesale value of your vehicle in your pocket.
How to apply
The application is straightforward, and almost always gets approved in just 24 hours or less. Your loan can even be direct deposited into your account for your convenience. And repayment is in easy monthly installments made to fit your budget. And, you’ll still be driving your car. And improving your credit rating. And paying that dental bill, or getting your house fumigated, or whatever other unhappy little emergency has taken you by surprise.
Car title loans. A surprising asset you may not have thought about before.