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The Financial Plights of Adulthood

April 3rd, 2017 Posted in learning about money, Money Tips
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Once out of college and dropped into the world of adulthood there are a lot of things that you have to face, even if you don’t feel ready to or didn’t expect to have to for many years, if you don’t want to find yourself in the midst of a financial fiasco. Life after education can seem daunting, what with aspects such as buying a home for the first time, establishing a career and forming a family on the horizon, so it’s important not to add any problems in the form of financial problems.

First and foremost, you can’t be afraid to face some difficult financial aspects that you may deem to be slightly morbid. For instance, if you find yourself prospering financially shortly after college, no matter what age you are, there is no harm in writing out a will in order to ensure that the finances and assets that you have managed to accumulate go in the direction you would want them to after your passing. Writing a will can be a daunting, and sometimes upsetting task so it’s important to seek as much professional and personable assistance with as possible, such as those found in the services offered at Gillard Lawyers. Although this may seem to be something that is done only by people a lot of older than yourself, it is never too early to protect yourself financially; even those that are just starting out in the world of adulthood in their twenties should write a will if they have people and assets to protect.

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Writing of a will

And the need to protect yourself no matter what age you are extends itself to the insurances you take out on your life. If you have financial dependants, i.e. a person that relies on your finances to retain a good standard of life, like a spouse, friend, parent or child, then taking out life insurance cover is the best way to ensure that they will be protected if you were ever to unfortunately pass away. However, with life insurance there is a set period of time, usually 10 to 25 years, in which that eventuality can take place — it if were to happen anytime after the set time that was agreed upon from the onset of the cover being taken out then the insurance wouldn’t compensate for it. But there is a type of cover that does in fact cover for death at any time: that is known as life assurance; this type of cover is far costlier in comparison to life insurance, so it’s important to know exactly what you want and need when choosing what to take out. If you need help creating a will that will be suitable for you then you should look into using professional will writing services. This will ensure that you and your assets are protected if anything should happen to you and that they are distributed to the right parties. The similarities between the two both in their name and in the cover that they offer makes for an interesting point: you should always be sure of what it is that you’re taking out, even when two things sound and almost act the same. Taking out a cover you don’t need or want can bind you to something for a long time, even for life, and thus can be very wasteful of your finances in the process. For more information on the differences between life insurance and life assurance, make sure to click here

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Life insurance could be for you

And if you do want to go back to school, first of all you shouldn’t do so just to recapture the ‘good old days’ and should only do so if it’s going to better your career, and second of all you shouldn’t do so if you haven’t got your finances sorted. Seeking further education can be a very costly procedure and the decision to seek it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

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A Strong Financial Future Requires Logic And Creativity

March 31st, 2017 Posted in learning about money, Money Tips
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Quite often you can split humans into two camps, the logical thinker, and the creative thinker. These two sets of people go about their lives and decisions in very different ways. You will usually see the logical thinker enjoying a well-rounded life. With all their financial affairs in order and a stable, if not a little safe, future ahead. Whereas the creative thinker is someone who always seems to be on a rollercoaster, either riding high or low. It is more usual to see a creative thinker at the head of a large business, although they will have learned a lot of logic on the way.

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Logical thinkers and creative thinkers are often in turmoil with one another, if you are in a relationship where your partner cannot understand your create reasoning, you could find yourself in between lots of arguments. If you are creative, you may believe that you are an optimist and your logical partner is more a pessimist. However, this isn’t true. Usually, creative people are late, very optimistic and refuse to give up even when failure looks sure. A logical person finds these traits OTT and believes that their optimism is simple denial.

When both these sets of thinker come together, though, that is when the magic happens.

One of you will be pushing forward, showing the other that failure can lead to successes and should not always be avoided, the other will be taking on the safety net tasks and highlighting any possible issues, monitoring your assets and ensuring your cashflow is working. When logic and creativity combine there are very few things that can stand in their way.

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If you are a single person and lie in one of these camps, then you need to start learning about the other side of things. Being creative is something that comes naturally to others. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn the skill. You simply have to look outside the box a little bit and take yourself out of your comfort zone. Learning to be more logical is also not impossible. It is as simple as asking yourself the question, does the risk outweigh the reward. To think more logically you need to step back inside the box, momentarily!

To have a stable financial future and to build an incredible legacy for your children, you need to get creative and reasoned. Push the boundaries a little, fuelled by your research. Take a systematic risk on investment. If you are creative then why not build yourself a safety egg, make some money out of an investment and put it in your personal savings account.

When we find the balance between logic and creativity that is when all the magic starts to happen, it is where millionaires are made; it is how companies become global, take Apple for a good example, it is how names go down in history. So, look into your world and ask yourself, do you need to push a few more boundaries, or take a couple of steps back?

 

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Strategies For Tackling Debt – Which Is Best?

March 14th, 2017 Posted in learning about money, Money Tips
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As any financial expert or debt advisor will tell you, the way to approach tackling your financial woes is to take a systematic approach. However, there are a few different strategies you can employ on your quest to become debt free. Some will work well for you; others may not. But how can you tell which is best for you and your finances?

Today, we’re going to go through a broad range of debt-tackling strategies and explain everything you need to know. Let’s take a closer look at some of your options, and – we hope – point you in the right direction for the strategy best for your situation.

Debt Consolidation

Most debt experts will advise you that you should never consolidate your debts – or, at the very least, be incredibly careful about doing so. However, there are some benefits in going down this route as long as you do your research and choose the right path. For example, interest-free balance transfers can switch your debts so that you don’t pay any interest at all for a set period, meaning all the repayments go towards paying the debt off. However, given that you need a good credit score to enjoy interest-free balance transfers, it’s not always an option. In this case, you might try to look for bad credit loans and consolidate that way. Bear in mind that these can be expensive, so it’s important to work out whether consolidation is worth your while. It might be the case that tackling your debts individually is a more cost-efficient tactic. If you decide that this route is better, the following strategies might help.

The Avalanche

The avalanche method is where you pay off your debts one at a time, focusing on the debt with the highest interest – or highest balance – first. Once you have paid off your highest interest debt, you move onto the next highest, and so on. Using this method is thought to be useful as your higher interest debts will, ultimately, cost you more. However, if the debt is large, it can take a significant amount of time to pay it off, and it requires you to put a lot of money towards it if you want to see quick results.

The Snowball

The debt snowball method focuses on your smallest debts first. The idea here is to get rid of your debts in a systematic way, eliminating them one by one and feeling like you are making progress. Now, let’s take a look at some of the snowball and avalanche methods in more detail.

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APR Method

This method involves working out which creditor is charging you the highest annual percentage rate. You continue paying your minimum repayment to all other creditors, and put any spare money into the highest interest charger. Once you have cleared the first debt, you move onto the next – not forgetting to include your minimum repayment. As you pay off each debt, you can take the minimum payments from your old debts and add them to the next biggest debts, ‘snowballing’ your repayment amounts as you go along. By the time you start paying off your largest debts, you should have a significant sum of money set aside, and it should – in theory – take less time to clear.

Highest Balance Method

You can also consider the highest balance method to repay your debts. This strategy can work if you have a couple of big debts that seem impossible to erase. However, if you put every spare cent you have into tackling your most significant debt, it won’t take long to start seeing your results. Let’s say you have $5,000 on a credit card. If you could, for example, pay $200 a month, in a year’s time you will have whittled this down to $2,800, assuming you have managed to freeze all other interest charges. It’s a dramatic impact that has reduced your debt with that creditor by almost half.

Quick Win

When you keep getting bill after bill in the mail, debts can actually start impacting your life and wellbeing. And it’s always difficult to know where to start. There is a solution, however – go down the quick win route. Using this strategy puts your focus on eliminating your easiest debts first – the ones with the lowest number of repayments left. If there are two debts with similar end dates, tackle the one with the higher monthly payment. While this strategy might cost you more in the long-term than, say, the APR method, it will still give you a sense of momentum. And, most importantly, reduce the number of debts you have far quicker than the other strategies.

Low Balance

Similar to the quick win strategy, the small balance method involves tackling easy debts first – the ones with the least amount of money outstanding. Removing these irritating small debts gives you a sense of momentum, and you can then collate all the minimum repayment monies and use them to tackle the bigger problem areas. If you are struggling to pay off your debts, it’s a strategy worth considering as research shows it is often the most successful.

The family loan

Finally, consider borrowing money from a family member or trusted friend. There are a few reasons why this can work for both parties. First of all, let’s take a look at this strategy from your family member’s point of view. If your mom or dad has, say, money in a standard savings account, the chances are that they aren’t earning lots of interest on it. So, you could offer them a better deal over a set period of time, while still enjoying a lower interest rate than you are currently paying your creditors. This strategy is like a super-charged consolidation plan, as everyone on your side of the fence wins – and you get to pay off your creditors in one hit. It’s always worth doing this as the sooner you can repay your problem debts, the sooner you can start rebuilding your credit score and reducing the impact on your lifestyle and borrowing power.

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Start Saving on Family Transport

March 14th, 2017 Posted in learning about money, Money Tips
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When you have a family, getting everyone around can be tricky. It’s especially hard when you have babies or toddlers, who require a lot of stuff. In the car, you need to have everyone in car seats, unless they’re tall enough or old enough not to have one. And when you use public transport, keeping track of everyone can be nerve-wracking. One of the trickiest parts of family transport is the cost. Running a car can be expensive, but relying on public transport often is too. And when you go abroad, it can get costly too. If you want to reduce the costs of family transport, there are a few tricks you can use.

Look Into Family Discounts on Public Transport

Many families use public transport for both long and short journeys. You might not own a car, or you don’t want to drive in congested areas. Having the kids in the car when you’re stuck in traffic isn’t fun. You can use buses and trains and in some places trams and underground trains too. The great thing is, kids usually go free up to a certain age. Children under five are often free, while those older (usually up to 16) are often half price. There are also offers you can use to save, such as a Family and Friends Railcard, which allows up to four adults and four children to travel together.

Reduce the Costs of Running Your Car

Having a car makes things a lot easier for many families. However, with the costs of tax, insurance, petrol, and maintenance, they can get expensive. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce the cost of your car. One of the major expenses is insurance, and you can often find a better deal than the one you’re currently paying for. It’s a good idea to use a comparison tool, like the one on Money Expert’s website. You can look at different providers side by side and find the one that will work best for you. You could also reduce the cost of your car by taking good care of it, helping to reduce maintenance costs otherwise a visit to PMJ International may be required for certain spare parts.

Walk and Cycle More

Are you guilty of piling everyone into the car when you could walk or cycle somewhere instead? You might think it’s quicker to drive, but getting everyone in and out of the car could take a lot longer than walking to wherever you’re going. If it’s a short distance, a stroll could get you where you’re going in a few minutes. When it’s a bit longer, everyone could get their bike out. Little ones can go in bicycle seats or trailers attached to the back of adult bikes.

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Image from Wikimedia

Share Rides with Others

There are several opportunities you might have to share a car with friends, family or other parents. You don’t always need to take the whole family with you when you go somewhere, so taking your half-empty car can seem silly. Perhaps you’re taking one of the kids to a birthday party, and you can team up with a classmate’s parent. Sharing trips can be useful for the school run too, or perhaps you can carpool when you go to work. There’s no need to take the car all the time if it’s just you or you only have one passenger.

Condense Your Car Trips

Another thing that could be costing you more in petrol is taking lots of little car trips. Instead of popping to the shops for ten minutes every day, why not condense everything into one trip? You can often get away with only doing one shop every fortnight, perhaps with a top-up visit to more local shops in between. If you have something you need to do that doesn’t need to be done right away, you could wait until you have another errand to run. Then you can do both at the same time, instead of making two separate trips. You can also do things on the way to doing something else, like picking up the kids.

Skip the Shopping Trips

You can also try skipping the shopping trips altogether. Online shopping will get you just about anything these days, from milk to new clothes. Shopping with the kids isn’t much fun anyway, and it’s not always easy to find time to do it without them. You can often get free delivery when you shop online, and when you do have to pay, you can get it fairly cheap. For example, if you do your food shop online, it might only cost a pound to get it delivered during a quiet time.

You can save on your family’s transport costs with some clever tricks. It’s an important part of your budget, so seeing how you can cut the expenses is essential.

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Beat The Stress Of A Financial Crisis

March 2nd, 2017 Posted in learning about money, Money Tips
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Because money has so much influence over our quality of life, running into a financial crisis can be extremely stressful. Having worked so hard to attain some level of financial stability, one stroke of bad luck throws it all into the air, and can leave you feeling like your life is slipping through your fingers. If you’re in the grip of a financial crisis, here are some of my best tips for dealing with the stress of it all…

Close Off Avenues to Easy, Frivolous Spending

One of the most challenging aspects to recovering from a financial emergency is a potent sense of hopelessness. When you lose all sense of structure in your personal finances, it can be very hard to figure out exactly where your money is going. The best response to this is pinning down all the most obvious leaks, and cutting off your avenues to easy, unwise spending. Deleting online accounts you shouldn’t be using, leaving some of your credit cards at home when you go out, or taking cash out to set yourself a firm budget are all good ideas. While this won’t fix the problem entirely, it will certainly plug some of the leaks, and give you some more wiggling room for figuring out your next steps.

Draft a Plan

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Once you’ve stopped money haemorrhaging from your account, the next step is devising a plan to tackle whatever’s at the root of your financial emergency. Whether it’s heavy debt, retirement coming up too fast, or a health emergency, you’re not going to make much progress without a plan in place. Start off by getting onto Google, and looking up all the information you can about dealing with your specific situation. There’s all kinds of great resources available, informing you on preparing for retirement, debt reduction, and pretty much any other financial issue you can imagine. You may also want to research companies which deal with your kind of situation, such as New Era Debt Solutions and George T. Bochanis Law Offices. Once you’ve done enough research, it will be so much easier to start setting out a plan with measurable, time-constrained goals for working your way back to financial stability. As the old adage goes, failing to plan is planning to fail!

Don’t Hide Things From your Spouse

Financial challenges can bring marital constraints down on your head like nothing else. Money problems have broken countless marriages in the past, and this certainly isn’t going to change any time soon. The best way to avoid any relationship constraints over money is to be as honest as possible with your spouse. Never hide anything from them, no matter how noble you think your intentions are. Put all your cards on the table, and give them all the gory details about your money blunders and challenges. While a financial crisis can be a massive weight on both your nerves, every relationship hinges on honesty and self-reflection, no matter what else is going on in your lives. Don’t let money get in the way of something more important!

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