Five Ways to Take the Hassle Out of Managing Your Money

Do you hate tracking your daily expenses? Are you tired of figuring out your budget each month? Do you have trouble keeping track of all the receipts you collect each month? If you hate tracking your budget every month, here are five easy tips to take the hassle out of managing your money. 1) Sign up for equal payment plans for your utility bills. This is easy to do once you have lived in your home for a year. This will keep the amount the same and save you from adjusting your budget every month. 2) Sign up for automatic … Continue reading →

Four Ways to Track Your Expenses

Do you track your expenses? This can be a lot of work. It is important to do however. You do have several options available to you, when it comes to tracking your expenses. One reason that you should track your spending is that it is difficult to find where you are overspending, if you are not aware of where the money is going. Here are several options available to you: 1) You can keep a written ledger of all your expenses. “Rich on Any Income” has a great program that you can do this on. It fits directly into your … Continue reading →

Is having a second income really a money generator?

Thinking about giving up a job so one spouse can stay at home with the kids? Worried about what the lack of imcome is going to do to your bottom line? There are lots of things to take into consideration when giving up a job- the loss of income probably being the utmost concern. If you take a bit of time to actually break down the finacial gains of working, you can see what you might save by not working, and what the actual loss of income would be. Lets look at what some costs of working might be for … Continue reading →

Take Advantage of Flexible Spending Accounts

This is the time of year for open enrollment at many companies. It is a great time to consider setting up flexible spending accounts in order to save money. A flexible spending account allows you to save money for health care and dependent care expenses. This money is taken out of your pretax pay, and can lower the amount of taxes, which you pay. This can save you money. If you plan carefully you will be able to save a significant amount in taxes for those out-of-pocket expenses. The dependent care expenses can be used to pay childcare or adult … Continue reading →

Four Simple Steps to Creating a Budget

You know you should have a budget. All the experts say so. But it’s just so darned complicated and boring. Well here are four simple steps to creating and using a budget that will have you on your way in no time! 1. Set a goal so you’ll know your reason for doing a budget. Debt reduction? Savings for retirement? A cash only Christmas? You’ll be much more likely to see your plan through if you know why you’re doing it. 2. Determine what you’ve been spending. This is a time-consuming step but it’s not one to skip. Before you … Continue reading →

Balancing Your Checkbook

Balancing your checkbook really isn’t hard. Sure, some people have a hard time with it, but they probably haven’t had it properly explained to them or it would not be of such a concern. Balancing your checkbook is really just simple arithmetic which you surely learned in grade school. And since calculators that do the addition and subtraction for you are so cheap these days – some for as little as two dollars each at the discount stores, and solar powered so you don’t even need batteries, then balancing your checkbook should be a snap. To start with, whenever you … Continue reading →