money saving tips – Page 9 – Luv Saving Money

Waste not, want not: Rethink monthly outgoings to save money

Waste not, want not: Rethink monthly outgoings to save money

When you’re looking over your monthly budget again trying to figure out just where your money is going, it can seem like you have no more slack to cut. There’s several things we take for granted paying each month, like cable bills, car payments, and cell phone contracts, that we simply don’t question. But if you take a step back and evaluate these – and other expenditures – more closely, you might just find a few extra dollars after all, and in the run up to the holiday season this couldn’t come at a better time.

Re-evaluate monthly payments

It’s all too easy to sign up to a monthly subscription for something and then never really think about it again – and companies take advantage of this ‘too much trouble to switch or stop it’ mentality. However, you could be shelling out hundreds of dollars each month that you don’t really need to. Sit down and write a list of all your monthly payments – satellite or cable bills, cell phone charges, gym fees, and so on. Then think carefully about how much you really use what you’re paying for – are you just wasting your money? Do you really need those 200 channels if everyone watches (much cheaper) Netflix now? How many times have you actually been to the gym? Don’t feel you have to get rid of things you actually use, but swapping to a lower cost plan which better reflects your usage might be of benefit.

Payment plans or paying upfront?

Credit card interest and car payment plans are really common monthly expenditures for many American families. The average car loan in 2016 was over $30,000, meaning spending just under $500 a month. Selling your car and buying a used vehicle in cash can save a lot of money. The average American also has nearly $5,000 in credit card debts – and at a yearly interest rate of 15%, you’ll end up paying around $20,000 back over 10 years if you only make minimum payments. Switching to cash forces you to confront what you’re actually spending, and reduce the amount you end up spending on interest payments.

Daily luxuries – unnecessary?

Keep hold of your receipts and look at what you’re buying on a daily basis: one or two dollars a day really builds up over time. This could be through buying coffee and snacks, or picking a more upmarket brand of toiletries or household product. Try taking your own coffee and just treating yourself once a week or once a month; and experiment with own-brand household products – and only opt for premium brands if they’re on a really good special offer.

Don’t try to change everything all at once, or you might not stick to it; but thinking more critically about your monthly spending – particularly items we take for granted – can often turn up some opportunities for saving money.

Budgeting When You’re Unemployed or Low Income

Balancing Your Budget Using Assistance Programs

It can be tough to get by on a small salary, even with careful budgeting. Luckily, there are financial assistance programs designed to help low-income families manage their money and cover daily living costs without trouble. By utilizing government and nonprofit financial services, working individuals can more easily access and save up the funds they need to achieve financial stability.

Know Your Income and Expenses

No matter what your income is, whether you rely on aid programs or not, the most important step to financial success is to keep track of your spending. There are several major expenses to take into account when planning out your monthly budget, including:

Rent and utilities
Groceries and eating out
Insurance
Medical bills
Transportation
Student loans, credit card payments, and other forms of debt
Leisure costs

Once you’ve figured out how much money you’re bringing in (or losing) each month, you can set about planning how to pad your savings account and improve your cash flow. Low-income individuals can also look into whether or not they can apply for local, state, and federal assistance programs.

Find Out What Assistance You Qualify For

Applying for financial assistance can help to boost your overall income each month and make it easier to afford necessities such as food and rent. Even if your family receives aid, you may be eligible for additional programs that can help you to manage your expenses better each month. Assistance isn’t just limited to cash grants, either. You can find programs that help low-income families to afford food, a new house, or hefty medical bills without throwing off their budget. Such financial aid and benefits programs include:

Affordable rental housing
Food assistance
Financial aid for students
Retirement and pension benefits
Programs and benefits for active military

There are plenty of government assistance programs that make it easier for families to manage their money. If you want to know whether or not you qualify for any of these programs, many offer a convenient online pre-screening tool for applicants.

Find the Right Bank Account

If you rely on government assistance programs for financial support, you may be worried that you won’t be able to apply for loans with big banking institutions. A little bit of financial assistance can make it easier to open a new bank account, however. It’s important to shop around in order to find a bank that offers accounts with financial perks such as waived account fees, no minimum deposit amount, and overdraft protection.

It can be difficult to manage your money in a low-income situation, but luckily, government branches and nonprofit organizations are on hand to step in and offer assistance. Financial aid programs not only help families to afford the essentials but also gain the financial stability that they need to pull themselves out of the red and start building a savings account.

Personal Finance Tips from Billionaires

Personal Finance Tips From Billionaires

Even if you have no intention of being a billionaire, it can’t hurt to gain some financial insight from a billionaire. Such information can help you sharpen your personal finance acumen and become smarter when it comes to saving as well as spending your money. Following are a few tips from billionaires you should be sure to put to good use before you spend or save another dime.

Start ASAP

If you’re not even out of college or just graduated from college, know that now is the perfect time to start saving, managing and investing your money. The money habits you develop at a young age are sure to follow you throughout your life, so you might as well start off on the right foot. Besides investing, managing and saving, be sure to read financial advice from businessmen like Don Gayhardt. While you might not feel such information applies to you if you aren’t an entrepreneur, you’d be surprised at how much overlap there is between personal and business finance.

Believe in Yourself and Your Financial Goals

No matter if you want to own your own home or simply pay off all your credit card debt ASAP, you’ve got to believe in yourself and your financial goals. It’s this belief that will allow you to keep going when obstacles come your way, and it’s this belief that will better allow you to bust through your goals rather than just barely achieve them.

Focus on Value Rather Than Price

Before you buy anything, think of how much value the item or service has as opposed to how much it costs. For instance, you’re better off buying high-quality furniture, clothes and electronics if those items will last you for a substantial amount of time and better retain their value. Another way of looking at this tip is to avoid paying on a high-interest credit card. While your current card balance would be the same on a low-interest card, you won’t be wasting money paying interest. What’s the value in that?

Stick to the Fundamentals

Rather than waste your time looking for tricks or gimmicks to make money, you’re much better off sticking to tried-and-true methods that have been proven to work time and time again. While some of those tricks and gimmicks might actually work, it’s simply not worth the risk of losing your money and the frustration that comes with losing your money. If you’re thinking of investing, you’ll be better off doing so with companies that have a strong yearly flow of cash and those that aren’t in danger of being obsolete due to advancing technology.

Avoid Debt at All Costs

This likely goes without saying, but do your best to avoid taking on any debt you don’t absolutely have to. This means only using your credit cards in extreme situations and paying them off as quickly as possible to avoid those interest payments. While it’s best to avoid credit cards altogether, you might find you need a credit score to apply for a mortgage and other loans. In that case, you can get a credit card and use it every now and then to cover the cost of a full tank of gas or a single meal. Just make sure that balance is fully paid off by the end of the month.

Keep Things Simple

Rather than be taken in by the glamour and glitz of a big house, fancy cars, designer clothes and the like, keep your life and lifestyle as simple as possible. While you can splurge every now and then, make sure you only do so after you’ve taken care of all your other financial obligations first.

Your financial habits can either help you or hinder you, so why not learn the best habits from billionaires? Rather than work harder to improve your financial health, work smarter.

How Cars.com Helped Me Save Money When I Bought My Acadia

This post is a sponsored post

After baby number 4 we realized that my 2006 Pacifica, while a good vehicle, wasn’t really meant for a family of 6. Sure it fit all 6 of us in but little else. There was very little trunk space when all the seats were up. That meant when we went on a family trip we might be able to take the compact stroller forget about the jogging stroller. When we went to Ocean City the kids had to have their bags on the floor by their feet because there wasn’t enough trunk space. So I researched vehicles with the help of Cars.com and had it narrowed down to a GMC Acadia, Honda Pilot, or Chevy Traverse. I was able to save cars to favorites so I could show my husband or quickly compare them.

With Cars.com I downloaded the app and checked the website a couple times a week. We wanted less than 30K miles on the vehicle. It had to fall within a specific price range. Cars.com helped me decide what cars we could afford realistically, and gave me a good idea of what dealerships had the vehicles in our price range in our area. I was able to search by make, model, mileage, price range, area radius, and more.

Then my Pacifica started having issue after issue. It was in the shop at least once a month for a new problem. That’s when we decided it was time to jump on the vehicle. I had it narrowed down to a GMC Acadia at a local dealership or a Honda Pilot at a dealership about 30 miles away. The Honda Pilot had less milage, about $2k less, but was a year older. The GMC Acadia had everything we wanted except that the price wasn’t quite what we wanted.

They tried to give us a hard time about the price. I pulled up the Honda Pilot on my cars.com app and said to my husband, that’s ok honey this Pilot is in our price range why don’t we go check that one out and decide. Then they were able to drop the price after I showed the car salesman. So thanks to Cars.com I ended up getting the vehicle local for a price that fit into our budget.

Ways Cars.com helped save me money:

Helped me compare to see what vehicles we could afford
Helped me be realistic about what vehicle condition fit into our budget
Helped me keep track of prices and which dealership consistently had the lower prices on the vehicles I wanted
Helped me compare vehicles
The app was a great visual aid in having discussions with my husband and bargaining with the dealership
Let me search by prices, make, model, radius, and other specifics so I wasn’t overwhelmed with vehicles I might now want or may not be able to afford.
It’s free to use!
Let’s you research cars right from the website or app
Payment estimator helps you get a ballpark number of monthly payments for car loans.

Can I tell you a secret? I really wanted the Acadia anyway shhh

How Can The Average Joe Buy Stock in Amazon, Apple, Disney, and More? Here’s How

This post contains a referral link. No other compensation will be received for this post. Any opinions expressed are my own. I am NOT an investing professional.

As many areas as I’ve covered in regard to money the stock market is one area I stayed away from. Before, the idea of investing in the stock market myself scared the bejeezus out of me. No thanks, I’d rather put money in savings, or my 401K that’s managed and has an employer match.

Still I had an interest. But pulling up a reputable stock site seemed overwhelming. Watching numbers drop as quickly as they rise. Everyone knows the stock market isn’t a sure thing. Especially for someone uneducated in it like myself. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, common stocks, sponsored stocks. I don’t know!

My husband got into it. He was doing fairly well with penny stocks. In fact, he did well enough that we were able to use the money as a down payment on our new house. We don’t have the funds to invest big but he did well with what he had to work with.

I had a personal interest in investing in Tesla. I’ve been reading the articles. They’re doing new and innovative things. I could go into all my reasoning but that would be another article. So I started an account and started watching things. Reading things. Tesla however was $300 something a share and rising. I’m not ready to invest to buy even one share financially. At least not yet.

Then I learned about Stockpile. It seemed the reasonable solution for someone like me. Someone that doesn’t have a deep wallet for investing but still wants to invest. Stockpile allows you to buy fractional shares in companies like: Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Under Armour, Snapchat, etc. The stocks that the average joe can’t buy 100 shares in, or in 5 shares in some cases. Simply fund your account with your bank account or debit card. It’s 99 cents a buy or trade. It makes it easy for you to find the companies you want to invest in. They’ve also started selling Stockpile gift card at the grocery store. When friends and family ask what you want for your birthday or the holidays you can ask for Stockpile gift cards now!

In this way, you can start investing in companies you wouldn’t normally be able to invest in. It allows people on a budget to invest what they can afford without breaking the budget. Right now, Stockpile has a deal where when you use my influencer link you’ll get $5 to use towards stock with your first $10 stock or e-gift purchase.