Items That Will Pay For Themselves In A Year.

Items That Will Pay For Themselves In A Year.

We all are looking to save money where ever we can, we work hard for our money so why should we be throwing out the window on utilities and other items if we don't need too. Here is a list of ideas and gadgets that will pay for themselves in a short period of time and save you money in the long run.

Solar Outdoor Lighting

I have switched all my outdoor lighting to solar this past year. Even my emergency lights around my home all work on solar now. Solar is a great choice if you want to light up your yard, drive wave or patio. Over the past year or so solar powered lighting has come down in price. You have a one-time investment but over the course of a year it will diffidently for itself.

Programmable Thermostat

These thermostats will pay for themselves in no time if you use them correctly. If you have central a/c this is the way to go to save money on your utility bills. These devices will lower or raise your heat and air conditioning while you are gone so energy and dollars will be saved. These devices are under a hundred dollars and can save you several hundreds of dollars a year.

Water Saving Devices

If you have city water and you have hot water tank you will want to install high efficient water saving devices on all your faucets, especially your shower heads. These devices are very inexpensive and can save you thousands of gallons of water each year. Also by saving water you will also cut down on the amount of hot water you will be generating with your hot water heater. You will save money by reducing the cost of electricity to generate hot water, plus you will save money by reducing the amount of water you purchase from your utility company.

LED Lighting

LED lighting is fairly new to the market place. This type of lighting can be a little expensive when first being purchased. I have heard where families have saved a few hundred dollars a year by switching their lighting in their home to LED. I have tried this yet, but with the cost of electricity going through the roof I may look into this myself.

Hot Water Heater Blankets

I remember years ago purchasing hot water heater blankets to save money on electricity. These items are fairly cheap and easy to install. They basically are an insulation blanket that wraps around your hot water heater giving the hot water heater a double layer of insulation to keep the water hot on the inside. You can also save more money by lowering the hot water temperature on the thermostat on the tank, by doing this and installing a blanket on the hot water heater you can save ten to twenty percent on energy cost which will put more money in your pocket.

Water Filtration System

An average American family drinks about 30 gallons of bottled water each year studies have shown. Tap water cost is pennies while bottled water is equal to dollars. People seem to think that bottled water is cleaner and healthier than tap water, while studies have shown that this is false. Filtration systems like Brita and PUR will cost some money in the beginning and for filters but the cost over a year is much cheaper than purchasing bottled water. Plus you will be helping the environment by less plastic bottles clogging up our landfills.

Smart Power Strips

These little gadgets are awesome especially if you have a desktop computer. When all your computer parts monitor, printer, scanner, speakers, etc. are plugged into this device and you power off your main computer these over devices will power off also. When you power off and everything shuts off there will be no phantom “standby” electricity drawn to the other devices. In the long run you will save money on the powered down devices but you will also save money from the lack of phantom electric usage.

Slow Cooker

A slow cooker is a simple and easy to use device that can save you on your electric usage and save you money on your grocery bill. A slow cooker will use less electricity than a stove or oven, produce less heat which saves your air conditioning from coming on saving your money on your utilities. Also you can purchase cheaper cuts of meat at the grocery store. By cooking slow the crock pot tenderizes the meat as it is cooking. This saves me a lot of money on my groceries each week.

Hopefully this has been helpful for you, I would love to hear back from you on your ideas that save you money each month.

Personal APPS to Help You Keep Track Of Your Finances

Personal APPS to Help You Keep Track Of Your Finances

By Tom Johnson

Looking for apps to install on your smartphone or tablet to help you with your finances, or setting up a budget? Here is a list of some of the ones that I highly recommend.

Personal Capital

This app is amazing, with over 800,000 people using this application to keep track of their personal finances. This is the app of all apps. With its mobile dashboard you can track your net worth, analyze your portfolio by seeing all your accounts on the dashboard, plan for your future with the retirement planner, these tools are all free with this awesome app.

Money Stream

This has been a highly recommended app, this app has been in publications like Wired, Forbes and U.S. News. According to their web site this app will help with organizing your bills and cash flow. The app will create a bill calendar to help you not forget about bill due dates. The application is protected with Military Grade software keeping your data private and secure.

Billcutterz

This powerful tool is designed to assist you in cutting your monthly bills. They advertised to negotiate with your providers like your cable company, cell phone service, internet service, electric and gas companies, plus many more. There expert negotiators analyze your bills to make sure that you are on the best plan for the money, they will also keep track of the service provider you have to make sure you are getting promotions and other discounts that they offer. This way you will always be paying the best rate for your services.

Swagbucks

Swagbucks is an online rewards and cashback program for earning these awards for simply doing your normal things online, such as searching the web, answering polling questions, watch videos, play online games, and doing your shopping online. Whenever you sign into Swagbucks you will get rewards for everything you do, these reward points then can be redeemed for Gift cards or another wide range of prizes. In some of the reviews I did for Swagbucks I found people who were earning up to $400 - $500 a month in gifts and prizes.

Level Money   

This superior app can take the headaches and frustration out of budgeting. Many of us hate to budget so this app has been great for me to use. Level Money automatically updates your available cash as you make purchases each and every day. With this app you can set up tools to do the work for you. You can track what means the most for you and your budgeting system and you can put to the side the things that don’t mean as much for you. Level Money is safe and secure.  With its 128-bit encryption service Level Money is just as safe as banks and financial institutions. Give it a try today.

ISpending

With this app you can monitor your daily, weekly, quarterly and even yearly expenses so that you can set up an effective budget. This seems to be a very simplistic app. You can do some customization to the app and in the long run it is a very effect app for your finances.

Budgt

This application for smartphones has been mentioned in several business and financial journals to help with your expenses. Day by day it will create a new budget for you based on how much you have spent each day. This app has many useful features and tools for helping you budget, track and forecast your  finances.

All these apps for your smartphone and tablet technology are awesome. I have not had any negative experiences with any of these applications. To get the best use out of these tools is just to use them to help you get better control of your financial dreams.

How To Make Extra Income

Are you in need for some extra income to supplement your full time job?

By Tom Johnson

There are many of us out in the work force that just need a little bit more income each month to help supplement the pay that your present full time job offers us. Many of us just need a side job or business to put an additional $500 - $1000 a month in our pocket to pay off bills, or make ends meet, or to put away for retirement. The list of jobs that I am going to talk about I have actually done most of these jobs myself or know someone who has done one of these jobs while holding a 40 hour a week regular job. 

Let’s take a look at the list and see if one of these jobs can help you.

Office Cleaning

I was able to do this job in the evenings and on the weekends when businesses were closed. I would work from 6:00 – 9:00 pm four nights a week. Most of the time I would do the work for about $20.00 an hour. If you do the math I would clear about $850 - $900 a month. This is a great part time business that a person can do with their spouse. I have known several people that started doing this as a part time income source and turned it into a full time business.

House Cleaning

This is one job that I have not done myself, but several friends of mine have done this or are doing this presently. One particular friend works full time at a hospital in our town and she gets off of work at 3:00pm. When she gets off work she goes home and changes clothes and runs out for a couple hours and cleans two houses. So she does not get burned out she does this three nights a week. She is paid $40.00 per house and if you do the calculations she makes around $900 a month average.

Grass Cutting

Since I live in Florida lawn business can be big money. When I have needed some extra cash I have hooked my small trailer to the car and loaded up my mower and weed trimmer and gone out and cut lawns. A small lawn I charged $25.00 and a larger yard I would charge $40.00 dollars. In our area we see several husband and wife teams out cutting and trimming lawns. This also can start off small and grow into a full time business.

Pressure Washing Homes and Driveways

This is a great job to do in the summer, especially here in Florida when it is hot nine months out of the year. I have paid friends of mine up to $150.00 to pressure wash my house and $100.00 to pressure wash my roof. This is another job that can be done in the evening like my friends do or on a weekend.

Blogging

This is a great opportunity to sit at home in the evening and write articles about what you like. This is what I did to get my business off the ground. You do not have to quit your day job and it can be done in just a couple hours a few nights a week. You may have to invest some time to build up credibility and grow a following, but once this has been accomplished it can bring in a great side income or full time income. I personally do it for my future in order to have a nice residual income when I retire.

Handy Man Service

This has really put been a blessing for me and many of my friends. There are a huge population of people that do not know or are scared to death too try and tackle small jobs around their homes. Sometimes it can be a 10 minute small job that can put an extra $25.00 - $50.00 in your pocket. Larger jobs can put much more money in your pocket every month. Both here in Florida and in Chicago I was able to find work just by word of mouth. There are plenty of people that just don’t know how to do things for themselves or don’t have the time, this is where a good and honest handyman comes in handy.

Computer Repair

I have fixed people’s computers for years, and have made some serious extra income while still holding down a full time job. The only expense I had was a small add in the local paper in the classifieds. I also would put a small ad on Craigslist which I picked up a few computers each month from. I would charge less than the competition and I was always totally honest with the people and not sell them something that they did not need. By doing this I would get a lot of referrals and repeat customers. I have paid for several vacations and mission trips to Central America.

Music Lessons / Tutoring

If you are musically talented like my neighbor is you can make some serious money giving in home music lessons. My service manager’s wife is a full time teacher and she does private tutoring on the side to help supplement her family’s income. Both of these do require some special talent, but most of us do have our own things that we are talented at that we can offer people.

In today’s tough financial times most of us need extra money from time to time. I hope that these ideas have opened up some thoughts of what you can offer people in exchange for being paid for your services. All of us have talents in one thing or another, sometimes you just need to sit down and give some thought to what you can offer to the general public. Just put on your creative thinking cap!

Live Positive, and Be Positive

I just came back from a four day convention and it was fantastic to be around people with a positive attitude. People that are positive and think positive thoughts seem to have a happier life and seem to have a great outlook at life. Even look at how much more healthier people that are positive seem to be, they are more relaxed, they do not get stressed out over little things, most dont have to take high blood pressure medication or any sort of anti-depressants.

The line of work I am in tends to put a large number of negative people in my life. When sitting back and watching these people I find that they are short tempered, they have a poor outlook on life, they are most likely on some sort of ant-depressant medication, and are terrible people to be around.
After spending these past four days with people that are positive I could actually feel my body take on a whole new feel to it. I was not stressed all the time, my muscles did not ache, my headaches were minimal, and I could feel my breathing was a lot more smooth. It is  amazing what stress can do to your health, and it is amazing how you feel when you are surrounded by positive thoughts and happy people.

In our day to day walk we are surrounded by negative people, they tend to prey on positive people trying to convert them to their way of being negative. We have to learn to stay positive and keep a positive outlook on life. A persons attitude is just a frame of mind that you have to keep control of and manage what you listen too and manage what you allow to go into your sub-consequence. The old adage, garbage in garbage out.

A good example of this would be, watching the 24 hour news and weather stations. One out of every one hundred news reports are always negative. Negative media sells! People thrive on watching these stations, you very rarely ever  hear a positive news article, all the breaking news is about shootings, death and murder, never about something positive that has happened. If a person was to sit and watch these news channels, that person would eventually live in a sense of fear.

Change your life and change your attitude.

Living in a positive environment can lead to a much more healthier outlook on life. Positive energy attracts positive people. this being the "Law of attraction". Studies have proven that goals in life are much easier achieved by having a positive outlook on life.

Here are some positive exercises to help you keep a positive and healthy life style.

Meditation - Setting some time daily even if it is just 15 minuets a day and focus on positive thoughts can change your life and make you a healthier person.

Calming music - The music that you listen to can affect your life and your thinking. Look at country music for an example, most of the songs focus on death, drinking, sex, and negative messages. Getto Rap music focuses on death, killing, sex and drugs. The Blues music focuses on being depressed and blue. Music can play a major role in your feelings, and your attitude on life. To think and a positive outlook you need to listen to music that calming and or energizing and promotes positive messages.

Exercise - Exercise is a great way to uplift your body, a great time to meditate. Exercise is a great time to spend time alone and think about positive thoughts.

Sleep - Sleep is getting harder and harder to come by in this materialistic world. Studies have shown that a body needs to have at least 8 good hours of quality sleep in order for the body to run at peak performance.

These are just a few of many ways for the body and mind to run at a positive rate. It is hard to be positive all the time, when you feel negativity coming into your thoughts, stop and take action to curb these negative influences out of your existence. Do some meditation, or listen to some positive uplifting music, do something,take some action and don't

allow negative energy back into your life.

Cash Back Rewards Credit Cards

Cash back reward credit cards are a wonderful thing, if you use the credit card wisely. It is a great to earn points that can be redeemed for cash, travel vouchers or others types of merchandise just for using your credit card.

Not all credit cards give back, so be careful and do your research and read the fine print on the credit card application. The cards that do offer cash back do not all give back the same amount, each card offers different incentives when rewarding the purchaser.

Here are some guidelines for choosing the best rewards credit card for you.

Credit Score

Each card company will have different qualifications for their cards. Know your credit score and check with the card company to see what their average approved credit score is for their rewards card. If you have a medium or low credit score then most likely you will have a hard time getting approved for a rewards credit card.

High Cash Back Rewards

Not all rewards cards offer the same cash back. Some credit cards only offer 1 percent cash back on purchases, while other card companies will offer a higher cash back reward. Again do your research and try to get approved for one that offers higher cash back rewards.

Unlimited Cash Back

Again not all cards are the same even when it comes to the amount of cash back they will award you. Some companies put a cap on the amount of money they will reward you, while others have no cap on their cash back rewards.

Sign Up Bonus

Several of the rewards cards offer great bonuses if you spend $500 dollars within the first 90 days of having the rewards credit card. This is a great way to maximize the cash back benefits right in the beginning. Some card companies offer different types of promotions from time to time, check with your card company and see what types of promotions they offer.

Annual Fee’s

Check around, you should be able to find a rewards card that does not have an annual fee tied to it. Some cards may have an annual fee but the cash back rewards outweigh the annual fee being charged so in this case the fee is worth it.

Remember these rewards cards are credit cards, so if you want the best from the rewards then you need to pay off the balance every month so you don’t start acquiring interest. Having interest charges on these cards negates the cash back rewards, Another thing to remember is just because you are getting cash back rewards does not mean you can go out and overspend and ruin your budget. It can be tempting to overspend and purchase items you really don’t need. These cash back rewards cards are great if used responsibly and used sensibly.

Home Real Estate Mortgages

Financing a home can be very tricky and confusing to many and can bring with it many risks that are difficult to see from the beginning. During the real estate boom I was a realtor and a mortgage consultant; many lenders were offering home buyers all sorts of mortgage programs with confusing term, they would do this to keep the purchaser confused just in hopes to entice the home buyer into getting their loan from them.  With all these weird mortgage deals it helped to cause the real estate melt down in 2008 Many people had no idea how their mortgage worked and all the crazy fees that were built into their mortgage, because of this many people walked away from their homes thus the

starting of the real estate meld down. This melt down caused the latest economic recession that we are still trying to come out of today. Back before the melt down lenders were giving away money on loans like it was candy. I went to a lot of mortgage closings as a mortgage closing agent and could not believe what people were signing, they had no idea what the terms of the loan were for, or they had no clue as to the thousands of dollars in closing fees that were rolled up into their loan. People would not read the documents, all they wanted to do was sign the forms and be done with the whole mortgage process.

Since the melt down lenders have gotten smarter and more conservative. Even today you need to be smart on finding a mortgage that works best for you and your family. You do not want to get yourself in over your head in debt in order to have that dream home you and your spouse has always wanted.  You want to be smart and get a home that is comfortable for you and your family to afford.

There are a lot of different types of mortgage programs out on the street even today after the melt down. Let’s take a look at some of the more common mortgage programs that you may want to consider when purchasing your dream home.

Fixed Interest Rate Plans

A fixed interest rate mortgage is a home loan that has an interest rate that does not go up or down during the life of the loan. The loan is amortized which means that the lender takes the total principle amount and adds in the interest that will accrue to give the lender a total figure. The lender then divides up the total amount into monthly payments usually 360 monthly payments if it is a 30 year loan.  The lender will front end load the interest which means that the majority of your early monthly payments go’s towards the interest that is due on the loan. Once a majority of the interest is paid then more of the portion of your monthly payment will be paid towards the principle. Your payments still remain the same from day one till the end of the mortgage.

Adjustable Interest Rate Mortgages

Adjustable interest rate mortgages sometimes called ARMs have interest rates that change from time to time. These mortgages can sound very complex and confusing but many homeowners find these mortgage plans very attractive. Fixed interest rate mortgages will have a little bit higher interest rate when signing the mortgage papers where ARMs will have a lesser interest rate in the beginning to intice home buyers to purchase them over a fixed rate loan.

Lenders create these loans based on an index number which is essentially a measure of money current value. The value of money goes up and down and these ARMs allow lenders to respond to this increase of decrease of the value of the money. If you are looking at an ARM take a look at the terms of the loan, lenders will have a low interest rate in the beginning of the loan, this rate will be locked in from three to five years. After this fixed rate of time has expired the rate of your loan may go up a few percentage points. But don’t get scared, these ARMs always have a cap which prevents rates from jumping to high.

Interest Only Mortgage Plans

These hybrid loans I do not care for. They are very confusing because the lender take parts of a fixed interest rate loan and parts of an adjustable rate mortgage to make these loans attractive. These loans are usually for home buyers on a tight budget. They allow the borrower to make payments towards the interest part of the loan for the first few years. This allows the purchaser to make lower monthly payments at first in order to adjust their budget to start making larger payments which will go towards the principle.

Assumable Mortgage

You may come across a property that has an assumable mortgage on it. This is where an owner of a property can sell you the property and you can take over his or her mortgage. There can be several issues with these loans so make sure that you have an attorney review and explain all details and drawbacks that you may inquire from these types of mortgages.

Conclusion

Mortgages and home financing can be difficult and time consuming. Knowing the basics before you get started can save you a lot of frustration and sleepless nights. Take a look at your budget  and your finances and know where you stand today and in the coming years and then take action and find a mortgage program that suits your family’s needs. Again don’t go overboard,  find a mortgage program that you and your family can comfortable afford.

Do you coupon?

Do you coupon? Do you ever wonder if couponing is really saving me money or am I just spending money on things I really don’t need?

There are researchers that state that couponing can be bad for you and can hurt your finances in the long run.

Like ever good thing, there are pro’s and con’s to couponing.

Let’s take a look at some of these con’s in couponing.

Coupons can cause impulse buying. When shopping especially for groceries it is always recommended to use a grocery list so you don’t over spend. But most people that use coupons will usually make purchases of items that they have coupons for. You may not have a need for the item but because you have a coupon for it you purchase it.

Junk food. Studies have shown that a large portion of online coupons are redeemed junk food and candy.  If you are trying to diet then couponing might not be good for you.  

Processed foods. If you are into purchasing processed food then couponing will be good for you. Studies have shown that many of the coupons in papers and online are for processed foods like frozen pizzas, tv dinners and other frozen of frozen food. These prepackaged foods are typically higher in sodium, fat, calories and preservatives. If you are into making your own meals with fresh products then couponing may not work for you.

Unhealthy drinks. Most coupons for soda’s and energy drinks may  be appealing to people that don’t drink a lot of water. Most of these drinks are high in sugars and caffeine. 12% of coupons are for drinks that are not really good for you.

Online coupon. I do a lot of computer repairs and virus removals from computers. I find that several of the computers I have worked on removing viruses the people got the virus from couponing sites. I try to tell the people to not use these sites, many of the stores don’t take coupons from these sites anymore and the sites seem to be loaded with computer viruses. A local restaurant chain I just visited would not take a coupon I had found on my smart phone. The owner said that there has been several sites that make online coupons to look like real coupons but they are a scam. So even stay away from couponing on your smartphone.

There are some good to couponing if it is done correctly. I just advocate that you be careful and not overspend and purchase things that are not needed when using coupons. If you use coupons correctly you can diffidently save some serious money, we will take a look at this later on in a different post.

But like everything there is both pro’s and con’s to couponing. Just be careful and don’t get taken by some of the scams that are out there in couponing.

Take time when making a major purchase.

How often do you ever think of what you are purchasing before you buy it? I try to take a couple of days before I make my purchases.  I am talking about groceries and essentials but what I am talking about  are things that I am wanting and not really needing. For an example I just bought a fishing pole. I saw the one I wanted and the cost of it was $150.00 but before I purchased it I went to the store to really make sure that this was the one that I really wanted. I really thought this was the one that I really wanted, but before I would spend that kind of money for a fishing pole I would check around at a couple of other stores before spending that kind of money. I went to a couple of stores and I found one that was just as good if not better for $60.00. Now if I was an impulse buyer I would have wasted $90.00 on something that is just as comparable as the one for $150.00.

I was really glad that I did not purchase the one for $150.00 even though I would have liked it very much but if I would have purchased the more expensive one then I would have had buyer’s remorse when I saw the one for $60.00. We have all had buyer’s remorse at one time or another. I find that taking my time when purchasing things I can usually avoid getting upset for spending extra money on something that I could have found cheaper.

Here are a few questions that I ask myself before I make purchases.

Am I just making this purchase because of emotion or logic? You should never make a serious purchase just out of emotion. Most of the time when you make a purchase with just emotion then you will probably regret the purchase later on. For an example you are walking through a store and a new television catches your eye and you make the purchase just because you get attached emotionally to the item, then a week later you get hit with the credit card bill you forgot about and you don’t have the money to pay for it because you spent it on the television. You let your emotions get the best of you and you did not think the purchase through all the way.

Do I really need this item? I ask this question at every purchase I make. A lot of times I find that the purchase is a want, so I weigh out how much enjoyment am I going to get out of this item. Wants are fine as long as they will give you plenty of enjoyment over the years.

Do I have the spare money for this item? I will not make a purchase unless I know for sure my bills are paid and there are enough funds in my account for any emergency that may come up, If I have any question about whether my bills are paid or not then I will hold off on the purchase until I know for sure that all my bills are paid for the month.

Have I done my research on the item? I will not make any purchase until I have shopped around to make sure that I am getting the best price. There are many times when you can make the purchase online. Most of the time by shopping online you will save money on gas and time. Again by not being an impulse buyer I save a lot of money by shopping around. 

In today’s times it is hard to save money and we are all trying to become financially independent. We all need to make our purchases smart and wise. Each purchase needs to be thought through and analyzed to make sure the purchase is the right decision and we are getting the best price for it.

Set Up an Emergency Fund

A very common question that keep's popping up when talking to people about finances is “How much money should I set aside for emergencies”?  This question has many variable answers but when I did my research most financial advisers suggested to start with a goal of three months. But the ultimate goal would be to have six months of income set aside in an interest bearing account.

I would shoot for the six month goal in order to give yourself a good cushion to fall back on if an emergency arises. Back about twelve years ago I was laid off work without any warning sign or knowledge of it coming. I was out of work for six months but thankfully I had six months of income set aside, if I did not have this cushion I and my family may have ended up on the street without a roof over our heads.

Back in 2008 during the great meltdown of the economy many people were without work for long periods of time. With the economy today and the unstable governments in other countries the American economy is very fragile. At any given moment we could have something major happen here in the United States and our money system could have a major collapse and people would be out of work and have no income. Having a nice financial cushion of money set aside makes life a lot easier and less stressful if you find yourself like me out of work for any given period of time.

The truth is that anything could happen to anyone of us at any given moment. We could find out that we have some major illness, or we get into a car accident, your spouse dies out of the blue, etc.  One just never knows what may happen at the blink of an eye. We are not guaranteed our next breath. My best advice is, be prepared and if you are not then make it a goal to get yourself prepared.

Let’s look at how we can get this started.

You first need to know what your bills are. You need to take some time and sit down and write out what your fixed monthly bills are, this way you will know what your fixed expenses are. Now figure out what your variable expenses (gas, groceries, entertainment, etc.) are.

Once you know what your total expense picture is you can then determine how much money you will need to save. Take all your expenses and multiply by three for three months emergency fund or six for a six month emergency fund.

To set up emergency account correctly do not try and save the money in your checking account. I have tried this and if it is sitting where it can be seen you will spend it, trust me. Set up another account preferably with another financial institution like a credit union and make sure it is an interest bearing account.

Be extremely disciplined to get this account filled up, this is a very important fund and needs to be handled as a do not touch me account. Only draw money out of this account for emergencies only. You can decide what you call an emergency; some examples would be car repairs, hospital bills, money to live on if you or your spouse loses their job, things like this. Not vacations or money for a down payment on a new car.

No one expects to lose their job, I didn’t twelve years ago, but things happen. That is why it is wise to have this emergency fund set up and the fund filled as soon as possible. It is better to be prepared then to be caught with empty handed and you and your family be caught in a financial disaster. But if you do have an emergency and you have an emergency fund set up then you can sleep at night soundly if you are prepared.

Envelope Budget System That Works

If you are new to planning a budget or if you are not technologically advanced, this simple budgeting process of using envelopes may be right for you. I remember back many years ago when I was just around twenty years of age this technique was introduced to me. This particular budgeting system is very effective and has a proven track record for working for most people as long as they stick to the program. Many people today rely on technology to do their budget and finances but if you look back you will probably see that a large portion of population is in debt because of technology. It is so easy for people to pull out that plastic card to pay for things even when they don’t have the money to pay for them. We all have been guilty of this in one way or another and that is why we are in debt, and many us are deep in debt way over our heads.

Let’s take a look at these simple steps to setting up an envelope budget.

• The first thing you will want to do is go to a Dollar store and purchase a box of envelopes. I like e to use the yellow envelopes that has a clasp on the top.
• Next write on each envelope preferably with a Sharpie the items you need to budget for. The envelopes need to be categorized and labeled. For example, label one for groceries, one for gasoline, one for credit cards, and so on. I would also make a miscellaneous envelope and a backup envelope. These will be used only for a couple of months to make sure that you do not run out of cash in a particular envelope. This will be your cushion while you are adjusting your budget per category.
• Now that you have your envelopes set up you will need to sit down and figure out the monthly dollar amount for each envelope. You should have a good idea of how much you spend on each of the categories. If for some reason you have no clue what you spend on these then you will need to keep track over a month or two on paper to see what you are spending so you have an idea of what to put on the envelopes.
• Now pay your recurring fixed bills like your mortgage, utilities, car payment, etc. The money left over is what you are going to use to set up the envelope budget.
•  Take cash out of your account at the bank and put in the allocated funds into each envelope. When you make a purchase you will pay for the item with the cash in the envelope. Get a receipt for the item even if it is for gas, take the cash from the envelope and replace it with the receipt. When all the cash is gone in the envelope you are finished for the month in spending in that category. The idea of the receipt is for review, if you are upset because you have no more cash in that category and you want to know where it went you can go back and look at the receipts and see what you spent the money on.

You will find it takes a couple three months of tweaking this system to make it work smoothly. This is why you have a miscellaneous and a backup envelope with spare cash in them to fall back on so one of your envelopes runs dry and a emergency happens in one of these categories.

At the end of the month and you have left over money in any of the envelopes you will want to take this money and put it into a savings account. If you are like most and you don’t have a savings, now is the time to start one. Once you have three to six months of income saved up in your savings you will want to take the money that is left over each month to start paying down your debts until you are fully financially free of debt.

Why Should I Use a Credit Union

Credit Unions - Why Should I Use Them?

When driving around town you will see both credit unions and banks in your neighborhood. People sometimes do not know or understand how a credit union works. Plus everybody is different especially when you are talking about their money and savings, some people may prefer to open an account with a large commercial bank while others may prefer to go with a small credit union where they get more personal attention. Here are some advantages and and a couple of disadvantages of credit unions.

Credit unions are similar to banks but are owned and operated by its members. A credit union is a not-for-profit, cooperative financial institution that is owned and controlled by its members. A credit union is obligated to take the money it makes and invest it back into the operation or uses the profits to better the institution. 

Once you open an account with a credit union you automatically become a member. A credit unions goal is to deliver great customer service and please their members. At credit unions you the members are the owners. At some credit unions they even allow members to vote on policies concerning the operation of the facility. At banking institutions especially the larger one’s their main focus is to make a profit and making their stock holders happy. This is why there are so many fees for every little transaction you make. Anything they can do to increase the revenue of the bank they will do. At credit unions if there are any fees they are much less than regular banking institution. The lower the fee’s the more money you can keep in your pocket.

Credit union employees you usually will see time after time, this is nice because you can build a relationship with the person that you deal with and gain their trust.  This can come in handy when you have questions about your account or need a loan. At a regular bank you hardly ever get a chance to build a relationship with your banker, so when you have a question or need a loan you may not feel as comfortable as you would at a credit union. Credit unions are here to help you but a bank is only here to make money.

ATM's at credit unions is service that you usually don’t get charged for if you use the credit union ATM, the disadvantage is that the ATM’s can be hard to find because there are very few of them. They usually will only be located at the credit union location. You can save money on ATM fees but the con is you will have to travel out of the way to use the ATM or pay a service fee for using a ATM that is not connected to your credit union.

Credit unions like to offer its members lower interest on their loans, such as lines of credit, credit cards, auto loans and other types of small loans. Credit unions usually don’t like to do home loans because it ties up the credit unions money for a long period of time. Credit unions usually don’t have strong stipulations on their loans and offer lower interest rate which makes their loans look more appealing than the larger banking institutions. If a member has poor or weak credit most credit unions are willing to sit and work with you to obtain a loan that fits your needs.  Most of the time they will be able to help you get the loan that you need.

Disadvantages to belonging to a credit union are few, one of the minor disadvantages is that not everyone qualifies to be a member.  Unlike banks that are open to anyone, laws require credit unions to have a defined field of membership, which means you'll have to be a member of that group to access the credit union and its services. 

The field of membership can be broad, including an employer, church, school, community and employee group.

Gaining access through an employer is the easiest way to become a member, but community-based credit unions are also widely available in many cities and towns across the country. The vast majority of consumers, especially in large communities and cities have an opportunity to join a credit union.

As you can see the pros do heavily outweigh the cons for belonging to a credit union. Look around in your community to find a local credit union to see if you qualify to be one of their members. If you don’t check out others in your area, you will probably find one that you can meet their qualification’s.

Once you do find one that you can belong to make sure you sit down with one of the credit union advisers to find out all the services that they offer.

Detailed Steps to Setup An Ebay Business.

Today we are going to take a deeper look into setting up an EBay business.

We talked about in the previous post about opening an EBay business and the basics of what it took to opening this type of business. Now we will dive in a little deeper as too setting up an EBay account and running the business. I listed several steps to help guide you along the process, hopefully they

will answer some of your questions.

Step 1. The very first thing you will need to do is open and EBay account and a PayPal account. You will need to do this in order to sell on EBay and to collect the funds that you are owed for the items that you have sold. Paypal  is truly an awesome site  that is easy to use and they accept all major credit cards and will do international processing as well.

Step 2. Since you have just opened your first EBay account you will want to build up some positive feedback. I would recommend purchasing a few small inexpensive items to build up positive credibility and a positive feedback score. Positive feedback will set your buyers minds at ease and it will show people that you are a trustworthy person and that you have good integrity.

Step 3. When it comes to selling items you will find a lot of opinions on the web both positive and negative. Try to not look at the negative opinions because there is no way to know why their EBay business did not work for them. Focus on the positive comments and learn from these power sellers.

In order to learn how to sell items on EBay I would recommend selling some items that you may have laying around the house at first so you can experiment with wording and pictures and if you make a mistake it won’t cost you an arm and leg. Plus this will help you de-clutter your home, garage and shed and put a few extra dollars in your pocket.

If you are selling items like clothing, jewelry, or anything that has a brand name, make sure that you put the brand name in the title and description. Most people will be searching brand names in their search criteria on EBay and if you do not have the name of the brand in the title or description your item will not show up on their search list.

When it comes to condition of items, be 100% accurate and up front in the description of the item. If there is a flaw or scratch in the item make sure you mention it, I go as far as to take a picture of the flaw so people will know about it and cannot come back after me for not mentioning the scratch. People love it when you are honest and don’t try to sell something as mint condition when in reality it has a flaw. This also go’s in helping to build your credibility and good feedback on EBay.

Step 4. Take good pictures with a simple digital camera, you do not need anything fancy or expensive save your money. I use a point and shoot automatic camera, I do not use any kind of fancy high dollar camera. I do spend some extra time staging the item so it has good clarity, and there are no other items in the picture that would confuse the buyer.

With jewelry I try to use a black background that is nice looking. I may take a cardboard box and put it on top of a table and cover it with a clean black sheet. I smooth out the wrinkles, and place the item on top of the covered box. I take several pictures from the front, top, and sides. I then download the pictures into my computer and use a simple free picture editing program in the computer to crop the photo and clean up any distortion to the picture. 

I have four or five different backgrounds that I use, it just depends what I am selling and the color of the items. Staging to me is a very important along with writing a good description, spending time with the staging will make your item look more professional than your competitors.

Step 5. Pricing an item on EBay can be a little tricky. Do some research on EBay or Amazon Auction for the same item that you are selling? You do not want to over price your item and it does not sell, this is a waste of time and listing fee’s. Find what everyone else is selling the item for, as you will see some people take one or two pics of the item and write a brief description of the item in hope that it sells. If you want a few more dollars for your item, put on multiple pictures and write a detailed description of your item. You may find that you will get a few more dollars for your item than your competition since you put more effort into your listing.

Sometimes I will hold off on listing an item for 3 to 6 months in order for the market to turn around and the price to come back up. Once in a great while I will put something on a shelf for a year because the same exact item is selling to cheap and I have more invested in the item than what it is selling for. A little patients does pay off.

Step 6. Writing a description and listing your items to sell is at the top of the list of priority of importance. You do not want to take a short cut on this.

• a.       Brand Names
• b.      Item Name
• c.       Model Numbers
• d.      Sizes
• e.      Color
• f.        Make of the material
• g.       Circa
• h.      Measurements

You Must!  Give an extreme detailed description of the item. Remember that you want your item to sell and not lose the customer to the competition. There is a lot of competition on EBay so you want to make sure that you stand out above the rest of them.

EBay selling manager is a great tool to use. They offer different styles and templates to help you sell items. A listing template contains everything you need to design your listing page. There is other listing template software on the internet that you can use to dress up your product listing page.

Step 7.  Answering Customer Question. Buyers will have all sort of questions for you. It is imperative that you answer these questions as soon as possible. Customers would not be asking questions about your product if they were not interested in purchasing the item. Several of my customers ask questions about each item they purchase and will not make a bid until their question is answered. Customers can be fickle so do not let a customer slip away because you forgot to respond to their question.

Step 8. Shipping and handling. There are many ways to ship your items to the purchaser. I find that USPS has worked out the best for me. You still can receive free shipping supplies from the USPS if you order them correctly. Do some research online with the postal website to find these free items for shipping.

You will find that you get positive feedback from customers when you ship quickly and you use good packaging. Do not go cheap when it comes to packing the item to be shipped. I still remember receiving a 20” computer monitor from a seller on EBay that came in a box with no protection put around the monitor. There was no bubble wrap or peanuts in the box to protect it. I was very upset and I never bought another item from this customer, I also did give him negative feedback.

Customers want their items fast and in good condition, so take that extra few minuets to package the item extremely good, it pays off in positive feedback from your customers.

These steps should help you in setting up your EBay business. You will find a lot of positive and negative comments on having an EBay business on the internet. But like any business it takes work and commitment in order to make it successful. It is not one of those businesses that will make you get  rich overnight, but it can make you some serious money part time and could eventually turn into a full  time business if you devote the time and energy to make it one.

Starting an EBay Business

If you are thinking about starting an online EBay business there are many thing you need to know to so you can be successful. A lot of people I know have been successful in EBay and some have even given up the corporate life in order to do eBay full time. Now EBay is work, don’t kid yourself.  But if you want a stay at home business this is one that has been around for some time and it has made a lot of people like yourself successful.

First thing first, be smart and do some homework before diving in with both feet. Explore around and find the power sellers, check out their sites. Power sellers are very successful EBay business owners, look at they are selling and see how they set up their item descriptions and their about me page. Find out what is working for them and take some good notes. They would not be power sellers if they did not know what they are doing.

Now open up an EBay seller’s account. There are a few pages of information you will need to set up with EBay, you will also need to setup a PayPal account in order for your customers to pay you. PayPal is one of the best and easiest accounts for people to pay you through especially with a credit card.

Find items that are in high demand, this will take some research on your part. This is where you do some investigative work on power seller’s sights, and check out the “hot topic area” on EBay. What I did was I started selling items that were lying around my home and items that were cluttering up my garage and my shed. I started with these because these items were pure profit for me; I also had some old college text books that were in the closet doing me no good. I listed these on EBay and sold them for two to three times more profit than what I would have gotten for them at a yard sale.

Once you have your EBay business up and going and you have learnt the basics of what to do and how to do it. You will want to think about opening up an EBay store. An EBay store is a great place to show off all the items you have listed on EBay. People may be searching for one item and then they go to your store and find something that they just can’t live without, they would not have known about that item if they did not see it in your store.

One of the power sellers that I know uses Google “Trends”. Trends finds out what people are searching for on the internet. Google searches for hot topics that people all over the world are searching each and every day.  What my friends do is explore the list and see what they can get their hands on in order to sell on EBay. Just keep in mind that EBay is international, so if something does not sell in your area does not mean it may not be a hot topic in another part of the world. Stay positive and don’t get discourage, EBay takes work and commitment, treat it like a business and it will provide an extra income to you.

In a future article we will look at some of the finer details of how to run an EBay business. We will look at deeper of how to list items, how to add pictures, how to ship the best way, how to track your feedback, and good customer satisfaction ratings.