7 Ways to get on Track Financially

Lately, I have been writing a lot about getting out of debt and getting on track financially. We don't realize how simple becoming Financially Independent is. Yeah, it takes work, lots of time, and dedication but it's more than worth it in the long run.

You can live your dreams. You just have to work for them and plan.

1. Stop overspending.


Really, stop! If you can't afford it (and it's a want), you don't need it. Track what you do spend by using something like Mint.com to see where you might be spending too much and change your habits accordingly. Use this information to create a budget.

2. Make more money.


Turn a hobby/skill/telent/passion into extra income. Sell old books. Make Ebay and Craigslist your new best friends. Work more hours. Take on a second job. Become a tutor. Try to bring in at least $100 a month in extra money...

3. Pay down those credit cards and other debts.


With all this extra money you now have coming in, pay down your credit cards and debts. Use Dave Ramsey's Snowball method to pay down your debts. Make a list of all your debts in order of amount you owe and work your way down the list, one debt at a time.

4. Build an Emergency Fund.


Open a savings account with an online bank, like ING, that gives you a higher interest rate than regular savings accounts. You can't immediately touch this money, so plan well! Set ING to take a set amount out of your regular bank account every payday, of an amount that works for you, and forget about it. Before you know it, you will have money for emergencies.

5. Stop using credit cards as often.


Instead of using your credit cards to buy things, save to buy the things you want. Learn to delay gratification and implement a 24 hour rule on purchases over $100. Think it over. Do you really need it? Right now? Make your credit cards work for you...once you have paid them off use them once a month to buy something small and pay off the balance each month.

6. Downsize if necessary.


If you cant afford to live where you live move or get a roommate. If your car payments are too high or gas is costing you too much, sell your vehicle and get a cheaper one. Downsize your life to a life you can afford.

7. Strip away the non-necessities.


If necessary, get rid of everything that isn't a need for the time being. Focus on your monthly bills, debts, and savings goals. As you clear debts you will have more money a month to do what you please with. Get back on track before you spend on wants.

It seems like a lot of work, and it is, but it is worth it in the end to see your dreams come true and to live the life you want....

What Do You Do With Your Spare Change?

You know that spare change you find in your pockets, in the couch, in your car, or wherever? What do you do with it?

Every week, I give myself an allowance of $20. I use this if I want to eat out or buy something I don't really need. At the end of the week I put all the change into jars. I have a jar for quarters - I use these for laundry, a jar for the remaining silver coins, a jar for pennies, and a jar for for bills. When each coin jar is full, I take it to Coinstar and put the bills in the bill jar and the coins in their respective jar. I have a goal for the money I am using the jars to save with; I use that as my tattoo/shoe fund. When I have the decided on amount I can go and spend it without take away from anything else. 

 Here are some ideas for spare change:

 Stick them in a jar (or equivalent) and (eventually) take them to the bank/Coinstar 





Carry them around in your pocket/purse until you spend them 

Toss them into a fountain and make a wish 

Tell people to “keep the change” 

Give them to panhandlers 

Something else entirely

What do you do with your spare change?

Prepare for Your Next Financial Crisis

Almost everyone is ONE financial crisis away from financial ruin, but we don't have to be. Being prepared financially can take a lot of stress and worry away from your life. Here are somethings you can do to be prepared for that next crisis:



Pay down debt and ditch the credit cards
The interest you’re paying on your debts and especially your credit cards is destroying your long term financial plan and putting you at risk if a crisis does happen. Chances are, these debts are a significant bill every month. Now think about this. What if you didn’t have any debt and could be using that same money to set aside for savings, an emergency fund, or a retirement account. Your money deserves better. Make this the month where you take initiative and destroy your debts and move on with life and secure your future.

Look for extra income streams
The fastest way to build up your cash supplies and better prepare yourself for an unfortunate event is to look for ways to make extra money. Whether it’s through a side business or as simple as holding a garage sale, making that extra cash is key to boosting your income and securing your assets.

Excellent insurance coverage
Insurance is one of those things where there is a very fine line. On one hand, you don’t want to be overpaying for insurance but you also don’t want to go cheap and have missing coverage. It’s up to you to get the research done and make sure you have excellent coverage. Shop around and compare quotes from multiple companies. And don’t forget about disability insurance.

Build an Emergency Fund
This may be the most important thing you can do to prepare for a financial crisis. You don't have to put tons of money away a month, especially if you are paying down debt, but getting an Emergency Fund started and funded is a huge key to being able to avoid a financial crisis. Start buy opening an ING account - to protect your savings from you, since it takes 3 days to transfer the money - and set up automatic deposits from your checking account. After awhile you wont even miss the money and will forget about the EF. One day you will look up and have $100's, maybe $1,000's saved.

Are you prepared?
Anything can happen in life. Being prepared will put your mind at ease in case something drastic happens. The goal of preparation is not to prevent a disaster. The goal is to take a crisis event and turn it into nothing more than a minor setback.

Simplify Your Finances

People seem to think that being financially responsible and organized is something that is hard to do, well it isn't!

Here are some tips to help you simplify YOUR finances:

1. Make Electronic Payments
Setting up electronic payments means that people don’t have to do anything. Their payments will be taken from their bank accounts when they are due and they can never be late. This frees up the time they would have had to take writing checks and mailing these bills every month; it also saves money on stamps.

2. Take Advantage of Electronic Statements
Receiving statements in the mail means that people have to keep track of a lot of paperwork. A better plan would be to have electronic statements. The company would be happier with this arrangement because they save on administrative costs, and the customer can keep everything in a convenient place online.

3. Use Online Bill Pay
Online bill pay with the bank makes it possible to pay the bills online. This makes managing finances simple like in the previous example.

4. The Old Tried and True Spending Budget
Creating a budget helps people tremendously who don’t know where their money is going every month. A budget is a plan, and people who make a list of all the necessary bills they have to pay know they will be able to pay those bills when they give them the highest priority.

5. Reduce the Amount of Money Spent Each Month
When creating a budget, people might notice that they have too many different types of bills to pay each month. This can mean that they will have an unmanageable number of spending categories in their monthly budget. If the budget is too complicated, it’s not going to benefit people who want to make their finances simpler. They need to keep all of their spending categories to a minimum in order to make the budget strategy work.

6. Consolidate Accounts
A big help is to consolidate accounts which will keep them all in one place. For example, some people have more than one savings account. If all of these savings accounts are under one bank then these accountholders can log into that one bank and see all of their accounts in one place making managing money much easier.

7. Set Up a Level Pay System for Utilities
When people set up level pay for their utilities, they know that they will be billed around the same amount of money each month. Utilities can be unpredictable and in some months, people can use more than of one type of utility than another.

8. Give Things Away
By giving things away, the house is much less cluttered and there are fewer things to manage.

9. Purchase a House that Fits the Family’s Needs
When purchasing a new home, be sure that the house is exactly what will be needed and nothing more or less. This will ensure that the mortgage payments will be easily manageable and that the maintenance on the house isn’t overwhelming.

10. Make a List of Things to Accomplish
Making a change from a disorganized state to a more organized one can take a little time. Before getting started on this project, people can make a list of their most important goals down to the least and finish each goal before moving on to the next. Setting a time when they would like to have the goal accomplished will ensure that the item gets done and can be crossed off of the list.



...And there you have it!

One Dollar, One Million Personal Finance Seminar Aug 27

Contact: Rikki Grooms, CEO
Phone: 202-431-8008
Email: PersonalFinance4ThePeople@gmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PERSONAL FINANCE 4 THE PEOPLE TEACHES HOW TO MAKE
ONE DOLLAR EQUAL ONE MILLION WITH NEW SEMINAR

AUGUST 8, 2011 (OXON HILL, MD.) - We’ve always heard the phrase (and most of us realize it’s actually true once we get our first taste of adult responsibility), that “money doesn’t grow on trees,” but that doesn’t mean you can’t make the money you DO have grow... On Saturday, August 27, 2011, Personal Finance 4 The People (PF4TP) will host a 2-hour financial seminar on something more people should know, but don’t: the basics of attaining financial success. Taking place at the Oxon Hill Library (6200 Oxon Hill Road) from 10-2pm (one seminar at 10, one at 12), the “One Dollar, One Million” seminar will be held for just $10 to allow everyone to attend and learn the secrets of successful personal finance - how to make one dollar become one million.

With the current state of the American economy, consumers are drowning in their financial responsibilities, creating empty pockets and extreme debt for the average and below-average citizen. The underprivileged minority members of society are feeling the brunt of the deficit, and PF4TP’s mission is to assist those individuals in making better decisions with their funds to ensure a stress-free financial future for themselves and their families. The August 27th seminar will cover basic financial education, debt reduction/management, savings, and budgeting, and will allow for attendees to speak one-on-one with Rikki Grooms, CEO of PF4TP. Attendees are encouraged to become involved and ask questions, and network with the company and their peers as they take the first steps towards financial freedom.

For more information on “One Dollar, One Million,” please email PersonalFinance4ThePeople@gmail.com, or call Rikki Grooms at 202-431-8008.

###

ABOUT - Personal Finance 4 The People
PF4TP aims to reach out to those individuals who lack financial education while instilling the fundamental principles and importance of being financially independent. With a societal focus, PF4TP focuses on those types of behaviors that are often cyclical and universal to those who are minorities in the general society (i.e. African Americans, women, LBGTQI, Latino, single parents, young parents, and/or under or poorly educated) and underemployed, unemployed, or disenfranchised by the system.

The Importance of Saving and Budgeting

Most people underestimate the freedom that being diligent and saving can provide. Besides building an Emergency Fund (which is important for obvious reasons; and for those that don’t realize how important having an Emergency Fund is really need to pay attention), saving for particular life events such as weddings, vacations, new cars makes doing these things that much easier. The money for the item or occasion is already there, no need to scrape to get the money or take from something higher up on the priority hierarchy.


Most financial people advise to “pay yourself first” but in reality bills should come first because if you don’t pay yourself that month you won’t be punished. Having a budget helps with saving and allocating money for needs, wants, and want to needs and is very important in the overall success of your finances. Once the financial situation is more stable, sure, “pay yourself first” because you have put in the work to make sure your needs are met and most likely have found “extra money” hidden in your spending.


Once the “extra money” is found and allocated, then the best way to save is to set automatic deposits into a high yielding savings account and forget it. You won’t miss the money because you just found that you have it. Until then, saving is based on what is left after the other needs are met. It’s unrealistic to sit down make ONE budget and expect it to work the first, second, third…. time so that all the needs are met and money magically starts to appear in your savings account(s). It takes change on our part.

For people living pay check to pay check budgeting and saving is even more important because there is less money to spread around and being wasteful in any area can lead to a major financial nightmare down the road. The whole point of saving is to prepare for something in the future. It can be a short or long term goal, but you are prepared.

One nemesis of budgets and savings is the need for instant gratification. Every day we are told we can have whatever we want, instantly. Of course we believe it (after all advertisers wouldn’t lie to us just to get us to buy something would they?) and we want what we want, RIGHT NOW! Waiting isn’t something we can do automatically. One way to train yourself to be patient is to set a goal to save for the item. If you have the money but aren’t sure if the item is a want, need, or want to need then take 24-48 hours to really think “do I need to spend $500 for this, when I can use that $500 to pay off my debts that much faster?” Basically, think over the decision and why you MUST have it right now.

Getting on track financially is more than just changing your spending habits – it takes a lifestyle and mindset change. One can’t have the same values as when they were overspending and expect to be successful financially. I stress this to my clients each time we meet because this whole process can be very frustrating and we all may want to give up but we will never get to the point we desire financially.

Don’t give up. Don’t let frustration take your dreams away. Don’t think you are the only one.

Be persistent through the struggles. Be pro-active. Be determined.

And when that doesn’t work PF4TP is here to offer support, advice, tips, and stories of our own….

What Was Your Financial “Ah Ha” Moment?

My financial moment of realization that I didn’t have to live in debt was when I realized that I make enough money that I should be able to buy a pair of shoes or take a vacation without worrying about money. This moment came after being in a relationship and sharing expenses for 2 years, it was just me and my money after that. And my money didn’t go as far as I would like. I made a conscious decision to make a change, it’s been hard and there have been a lot of road bumps along the way but I’m slowly making progress.

I got my finances in order by first analyzing my spending using Mint.com and making a budget. It’s taken a couple tries to come up with a budget I can stick to, but the important thing is I have a budget that works for me. Next, I made a list of all my bills, dates they are due, and how much; I put the dates the bills are due on my calendar at work, at home, and on my phone (I’m kinda forgetful). The next step was to figure out who I owe, I made a list of all the people I KNOW I owe and pulled my credit reports. Then I made another list of the debts according to my priorities to pay them off. The only thing left to do is follow my plan.

I give myself a weekly allowance and whatever is left over at the end of the week goes into a jar for my “tattoo fund”, this seems to be working pretty well so far. Like I have mentioned before, I have started selling things on eBay, using coupons whenever possible, and using the Food Share program to buy most of my groceries for the month.

It’s a long road, but at least I’m on the road to financial independence.