Banking

8 Ways to Boost Your Credit Score

Maintaining a high credit score is important if you are planning to use debt to purchase a home or vehicle. boost your credit scoreThe higher your score, the better your interest rate will be which will result in significant savings. Below are some tips to follow if you want to boost your credit score.

1. Avoid using a P.O. Box because it makes credit bureaus think that you either lost your home or that you are the victim of identity theft.

2. Shred your financial statements or anything that contains any of your financial information to prevent thieves from stealing your identity.

3. Pay all of your bills on time. If you are late on one vehicle loan or credit card payment your other lenders may jack up your interest rates.

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April 8, 2009
Money Saving Tips

Use Your Coupon Books

Coupon books can save you a lot of money, that is, if you use them! The problem is that so often we buy them to support a fundraiser and then we misplace them only to discover them a year later when all the coupons have expired. I recommend keeping your coupon book handy and visible so you remember to browse through it and take advantage of the savings. If it is small enough, carry it in your purse or keep it in the glove box of your vehicle.

Coupon books are a great way to save money when you are on vacation, too. If you plan to spend a week or two in a specific city and hope to check out the tourist spots and shops, buy a coupon book and use the coupons at restaurants, tourist spots, shops, hotels, golf courses, etc. It will allow you to do more and spend less.

April 7, 2009
Budgeting

How To Make a Budget

The first thing you need to do if you want to make a budget is to gather all of your monthly bills together and sit down at the table and compare your income to your expenses.  The ultimate goal for making a budget is to ensure that you are spending less than you are earning.  If you are already at that point, that is great.  If not, don’t worry, that is why you are making a budget. 

 To get you started, I have included some expenses that you may incur in your household:

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April 6, 2009
Travel & Entertainment

Make Good Use of Your Local Library

Libraries are a great way to provide entertainment for your whole family at very little or no cost. You’re paying for them with your taxes anyway; you might as well reap their benefits. Why buy books when you can read them for free? Most of the time we only read them once anyway and then they collect dust on the shelf. If you don’t have a lot of spare time to wander through the library searching for books, check out your library’s website. You will more than likely be able to request the book that you want so they can put it on hold for you. That way you just have to pick it up and it saves you the extra time. Libraries usually also have movies that you can rent for little or no cost if you prefer movies to books. They have a wide variety of children’s books and of course many how- to books if you want to save money by learning how to do things yourself rather than hiring someone else to do odd jobs. There are also some great books out there for people who want to learn how to become financially free. I highly recommend the Rich Dad books by Robert Kiyosaki. They really inspired us. I will write more about those books later.

April 4, 2009
Money Saving Tips

Spend Half of What You Earn

save half of what you earnWhen my husband and I got married I was the main wage earner. It was tight but we were able to set up a budget that worked for us. Once we both began working full time, rather than allowing our expenses to significantly increase, we decided to keep our lifestyle almost the same as before. So, even though we could have afforded a few luxuries we decided if we had been satisfied without them in the past then we didn’t really need them. We did eventually purchase a home and that increased our living expenses but outside of that our budget remained nearly identical. As a result, we have been able to live debt free (except for our mortgage) and have been able to make prepayments on our mortgage to decrease the amount of interest we have to pay.

 

With the troubled economy and the increasing possibility of job loss it’s a good idea to step back and take a serious look at what you are spending your money on and consider how you can cut back in order to build up an emergency fund. Even in the best of times, it is recommended that you have from 6 to 8 months worth of living expenses saved. It is possible that you will have to do more with less, so why not start saving now by cutting back on the things you don’t really need?

April 3, 2009