11 Ways for Saving Money

11 Ways for Saving Money

Are you new at budgeting your finances? Do you really need to start saving up for a new vehicle, plan a vacation, save for retirement, pay on some medical bills? Here are some thoughts of how you can say for these items.

1. Make a total of all your monthly bills. Monthly bills are ones that occur every month, usually on the same day. Insurances, house payments, cell phone bills, and car/school loans are all considered routine monthly expenses. Don't include things like grocery shopping, clothing, or eating out, these are flexible and can change from month to month.

2. Make a list of net income after taxes you receive each month. This would also include rental income, child support, interest you receive from investment, and etc.

3. Subtract your monthly bills from your income and what is left over is your true free income.

4. Take a look at your credit cards. Put your highest interest cards at the top of the list to pay off first. We need to get rid of these first and only keep the one with the lowest interest rate in your wallet. The ones in your wallet should only be used for emergencies only, like car repairs, medical emergencies, and home repairs that are a must!

5. Think about all the money you need to spend to SURVIVE. Not on dinners out, new toys, or clothing. Things you need to keep your family fed and healthy. Subtract this money from your free income, it should only be half or less of your free income money.

6. Use the rest of your free income to start paying down your credit cards. If you just pay the minimum each month you will not see your credit card debt drop. You must make a diligent effort to pay more than the minimum.

7. Repeat these steps until your credit card debt is under control. This doesn't mean having absolutely no debt, but I would recommend an amount you can pay off in 3 months or less.

8. Congratulations on making it to step eight and getting your debt somewhat under control! Now let's start saving. If you like to see what you need to save to retire, here is a free retirement calculator for helping figure our what you may need. Retirement Calculator

9. If your company has a 401k and they offer any sort of match (any percentage), start the 401k. This is free money that your company is giving you, if you do not take advantage of this you are losing out.

10. With you car loans, mortgage companies, and credit cards you may want to try and connect with the lenders and ask if they would consider lowering your interest rates. Even if you only get one yes, it is better than not asking at all and continue to pay high interest rates.

11. If your employer directly deposits money into your bank account, set up an extra account to add money into. Since you don't ever see it, you won't think about it. If you deposit your checks yourself, take advantage of a savings account or do what I did and set up an account at another bank and then on my bill pay each month I automatically transfer funds from my working account to my other bank account, what do they say, out of sight out of mind.

As hard as it sounds, try not to indulge. Cut back your cable package, go out to eat once a month, and instead of seeing movies on the big screen with your entire family, wait until you can rent the movie. Chances are you can rent movies through red box for less than $2.00! You can save a lot of money if you just put some effort into it. Our family had to make adjustments, but now we can sleep at night and don't have get scared if the phone rings thinking what collection agency is after me now.

Can money make us happy

Can money really buy happiness?

This is a really tough question to answer because you have to look at in different ways. First the Bible says that “For the love of money is the root of all evil 1 Timothy 6:10”. But many people take this out of context. It is when we trade our Christian life to serve making money over everything and everybody else. Being greedy and covet money is the evil part of money. It is what we do with the money that either brings us happiness or evil.

In today's society the use of money to pay our bills, to help us get out of debt, take a vacation, purchase groceries, get us a vehicle so we can have dependable transportation, and of course put a roof over our heads is what we are suppose to use money for. Without these basic essentials we  would not be able to be

happy and it takes money to have these items so we can live. To say can money purchase happiness, my answer would have to be yes.

People look at happiness in all different ways. A friend of mine who is not a Christian looks at what makes him happy is buying things. He is a spontaneous buyer. He walks into a furniture store and walks out purchasing a $6000.00 bed. He had no plans of purchasing a bed when he entered the store, it was an impulse purchase. He ended up putting the expenditure on a credit card because he had no money to pay for it, but he felt the need to buy something. Now he is $6000.00 deeper in debt and is unhappy because he has this debt. So for the moment he was happy but it was short lived when he received his credit card bill and the happiness is  gone.

In today’s society we are pounded over and over again to make purchases and buy new things, even if we do not need them or can afford them. The world tells us just go ahead and charge it, we can pay for it later. In 2014 there were over 1 million dollars of personal bankruptcies mostly because people over purchased and could not dig themselves out of debt.

Relationships not things is what brings us happiness.  It has been said many times, that relationships with people, not things is what brings a person happiness. In a report in the Huffington Post that shared many studies of this same exact thing. Even the bible talks about this in Matthew 6:19-20 says “Do not store up for yourselves treasures (material items) here on earth, where moths and rust will destroy and where thieves will break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth or rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

Now let’s look at some steps of how money can buy us happiness the correct way.

Step 1; Get out of debt.  

Debt is the number one killer of a happy home. Debt brings on misery, unhappiness, physical damage to your health by being stressed over debt, and if you get yourself so deep in debt you have to file bankruptcy you will have many years of hard work bringing your credit back up to a good standard. This is why I listed getting out of debt as being step one.

Step 2; Give to others.

Luke 6:38 Give and it shall be given unto you. Proverbs 19:17 One who is gracious to a poor man lends to the Lord, and HE will repay him for his good deed. Proverbs 28:27 He who gives to the poor will never want, but he who shuts his eyes will have many curses. It has been proven over and over again from bible scholars to psychologist that giving and making others happy in turn makes us feel better and makes us happy.

Step 3; Look at what brings happiness.

For me it is spending time with my family and also helping others that are in despair. I would love to be able to be financially free from the bonds of work in order to do this but at this present time I am not. I am working on taking the money I make from my present job and from working on this blog to be able to make myself financially free in order to help others as much as I can. To me a job is an anchor around my neck that is holding me back from giving aid to others that are much less fortunate.

But each of us has to look at ourselves to see what brings us happiness. Hopefully it is not material things, but if it is them that is something that you have to work with and for. Whatever it is it takes money to get us the happiness that we are striving for.

Money can bring us happiness if we use it correctly to help us get out of debt, pay your bills, help others, and share it with those who do not have it. But if we covet money and be greedy with it money can be the root to unhappiness.

Sell Clutter Around Your Home for Fast Money

 There has been a few times in my life when I have needed some extra cash, for either a vacation, a mission trip or just to pay off some bills early. One of the best ways I found to make some money was by going through the house and find things I did not need anymore or I just don't use. This way is a great way to get rid of the clutter around the house, garage and sheds, plus make some extra serious cash to boot.

Yard sale to sell clutter and make money!

Many people tend to think that the only way to sell things is by having a yard sale. A yard sale is one way to do it, but there are many down falls for doing yard selling. First it is a lot of hard work setting up tables and pricing things, plus you have to sit outside in the blazing heat (especially here in Florida) all day, then you have the professional yard selling purchasers that will offer you pennies on a dollar for your items. Then if the items don't sell you still have not made much money and you are still stuck with the junk.

Here are a few recommendations of other ways to sell your clutter and make some nice cash.

Craiglist is a great way to sell items and another reason it is so good is that it is free to use. We just recently sold a boat that we had not been using, we listed it one day and sold it the next. We also use Craiglist to rent our rental home. Over the past several years we had lost renters and when we list it on Craiglist it always rents in a matter of a few days.

Two things I recommend when dealing with buyers from racialist, first only accept cash from the buyer, and if you are uncomfortable about people coming to your home then I would recommend that you meet the buyer at a local place like a public parking lot.

Amazon Auction site is a great way to sell your items. Amazon allows you to sell many different items, some of these items would include books, electronics, toys, games, baby products, musical instruments, CD's, DVDs and many other items like these. The only thing you need to do is sign up as a non-professional seller and sell less than 40 items per month.

Online Facebook For Sale Pages in the past couple of years people have been setting online sale pages up on Facebook. This has been a great way for people to advertise their items for sale with no fee's. People sell all sort of things from large items like car's and truck's to smaller items like kids toy's, clothing, furniture, and etc. To find one of these pages all you need to do is search Facebook for one in your area. If you cant find one for your location then you could start one yourself.

Consignment Stores are another great place to sell your items you wish to get rid of. Even in the small town that I live in there are least four or five of these consignment shops. These are great because all you need to do is drop off your stuff and negotiate a fee and they will ask a few questions for a description of the items and how much you want for them. When the items sell then they get a hold of you and give you the money they received from the buyers. Some consignment shops only deal in antiques, some deal only in clothing, while others may handle anything that you bring in. Just stop by one of these stores and get the details of what they sell and how much they charge and you could be selling your stuff that day.

Ebay I have used many times in the past to sell items that I wanted to get rid of and made some pretty serious money. Ebay is a great source to sell your items. What I love about it is that I can do it at anytime that I have some free time on my hands. I don't have to waste a whole weekend sitting out in the heat waiting for someone to purchase my stuff, all I need to do is take a couple good pictures on my items, write a description and list the item for sale. When someone purchases the item, I pack it up and take it to the post office and mail the item to the buyer. It is as simple as that. In a later post I will go more in depth of how to sell your items on Ebay and set up an Ebay store.

The key to selling items on Craigslist, Ebay, Amazon, Facebook, or any other online source is to write an awesome description of the item, take some good photographs of the items and have an amazing title for the item. Be upfront with your shipping times and prices, don't try and scam people for selling the item dirt cheap and charge a ridiculous price for shipping. The best practice is when the items sells package the item up really well and get the item shipped as soon as possible. Your purchaser will love this and give you a good rating.

Help with building a budget

A good budget is the number one tool to helping a person pay off debt, build their retirement accounts, and plan for their financial future. A budget is a road map to help you with your everyday finances. A person should not look at a budget as being a negative item, but a helpful tool. When you take a vacation you use a road map or google maps in order to map your way from point “A” to point “B”, well a budget is the same thing, a map to help you manage your finances.

Many Americans have troubles with their bank accounts and other finances because many of us lack the skills to manage their accounts and their debt. There are many tools out there to help us with skills but most people do not know where to look or what to look for. Many financial tools  are free of charge if you know where to look.

Before putting together a budget the first thing you need to do is track all your expenses for a month. There are mobile apps that can help you record all of your purchases. Every purchase, from small ones to large ones need to be recorded for this month. Even ATM fee’s and bank fees need to be recorded in order to get a good picture of you spending habits.

Take this data after a month of tracking and sit down and you will probably be surprised to see where your money has gone. This is best way to get an overall picture about how you allocate your funds and spend your hard earned money..

When you finally sit down to put together your first month’s budget the number one thing you do not want to do is cut out all the fun things you do. Don’t make this a punishment and take all the fun out of your life. If you are too strict on yourself you will probably fail in a short time period. You will find yourself cheating and eventually you will stop following your budget and you find yourself back in the same boat your are trying to leave. Instead learn to limit yourself. Example would be, “if you stop every morning for a starbucks coffee or eat out for lunch everyday, don’t stop doing these things you enjoy all together. Just set yourself some limits, instead of doing these things daily, cut yourself back to once or twice a week, you will see the benefits add up in your wallet at the end of the month.

Now take your bills for the month and separate them into categories. The first category should be your fixed expenses, such as your mortgage or rent, your utilities, car payment and any sort of membership fees that you pay monthly. Hopefully this does not go over fifty percent of your monthly take home pay.

The next category would be savings. Experts recommend putting away ten to twenty percent of your take home pay into a auto deposit savings account that earns interest. They recommend an auto deposit, this is where the money comes out of your check before you notice it is missing so these funds will not be seen, “out of sight out of mind” kind of thinking.

The third category would be flexible spending. Your monthly budget should not exceed thirty percent of your take home pay for this category. This would consist of eating out, morning Starbucks coffee runs, groceries, gas, entertainment, hobbies, and etc. This category is called flexible because these items can be adjusted. For example, when shopping for groceries, try cutting coupons and look at adds in the paper to save yourself some money. Shopping for clothes, is another area that you can compare prices in order to save money. Filling the car with gas, shop around the area for cheaper prices for fuel. Cut back to once or twice a week for going to Starbucks instead of going daily. These are just a few examples of where you can be flexible and save money.

So if you see, fifty percent of your money goes toward your large ticket items like rent or mortgage, twenty percent goes to savings of some kind, and thirty percent goes toward your more flexible items.

Here is a list of tools to help you build your budget. These tools are online so I have put the links here for you to click on.

Budget Calculator

Mint.com

Budget Worksheet

BudgetPulse

What is a budget?

I find that a lot of people live from paycheck to paycheck every week, then I come across others that run out of money before their next paycheck comes in. When this happens they have to charge items to their credit card in order to carry them to the next paycheck. I find that most of these people don't have any sort of budget they live by and this is the reason why they are run out of money by midweek. Using your charge cards to make ends meet is a very dangerous way to live. If you keep doing this week in and week out your only going to cause your debt to increase and eventually you will have more debt than you can pay back. This is why you need a budget to live by.

When I ask people if they have a budget they seem to get scared and want to change the subject. Most people don't even know what a budget is. So we come to the question, What is a budget? 

A budget is nothing more than a written down plan of how you are going to use your money this week, or month. A budget helps to make sure that you are going to have enough money to pay for all your needs and bills and not run out of money before your next paycheck. A budget is simply a financial road map to personal success.

There are some really good software programs out on the market that will help you set up your own personal budget. One of my favorite web based programs is called Mint.com, you cannot beat this program since it is totally free. Mint.com offers some really nice financial tools to help you get on your way to setting up your budget.

We will take a look in our future post of how to set up a successful budget.