Improve Your Financial Position This Summer

This post was brought to you by Shay Quincy

With the economy only recently showing signs of improvement, it’s worthwhile remaining vigilant when it comes to your finances. Thankfully, there are a number of ways you can stay on top of your money, whether that means getting a credit card with a better deal or just cutting your expenses in general. Why not see if some of the following tips can help you?

Stop unnecessary payments
Are you guilty of signing up to an expensive gym contract, with the best intentions of attending regularly but failing to do so? If that’s the case then look to cancel it as soon as possible as the monthly fees can soon add up. The same applies to any subscriptions you have, so think about whether you can do without them and check your bank statement for any outgoings you are uncertain of, as it can be easy to forget what you’re buying.

Find a good credit card deal
It’s always useful to have a little extra cash available for a rainy day, but make sure you compare credit cards to find the right product for you, rather than settling for the first one you come across. Think about how you plan to use your plastic and try to find a preferential rate of interest, because in the event you aren’t able to repay your balance in full one month this will help to keep costs down.

Stay within your limits
If you’re approved for a credit card the lender will give you a credit limit. Be sure to read the terms and conditions carefully as exceeding this amount is likely to trigger an additional fee. Of course, the same can also apply to your bank account, so why not make a habit of regularly checking your balance using online banking?

Bank online
If you’ve not already signed up for online banking, then now might be the right time to do so. If you’re not currently the most organized financially and your busy lifestyle makes it seem difficult to do so, then this might be the way to make a change. Gone are the days where you need to call the bank to check your balance or make a payment, as it’s possible to do all this online. If you’re a smartphone user then it might be easier still because many banks now offer dedicated apps, letting you handle your account on the move.

Do you have any tips for improving your personal finances to add to this list?

Successful Moms: Own Your Skills

This article was brought to you by Sam Peters.

I was thinking lately about an article I'd read describing how the most successful businesswomen are the ones who own their skills.

Well, a home is a business too, right? A successful home shares many qualities of a successful business:

• It brings people together to work and collaborate as a team
• Its members work together to achieve shared goals
• It follows a code of behavior and ethics, providing disciplinary measures as appropriate
• It needs to earn more money than it spends

This means that you, as combination CEO/CFO/Mom, need to own your skills and put them into practice. Here are some of the key skills for successful moms to own:

Maximizing profits
A successful business focuses on bringing in money, and a successful mom/provider does too. Every little bit helps, whether it's asking for a raise, training for a better-paying job or even putting ads on your website to bring in a few extra dollars.

Even though it seems mercenary to focus on money, you need to own this skill because it benefits your entire family. The more profit you bring in, the better you can prepare for college educations and retirements. Having a healthy emergency fund is also an important part of running a successful "family business."

Minimizing expenses
You are probably already highly-skilled at differentiating between wants and needs, but there are other ways to minimize monthly expenses. Don't let your hard-earned profits slip away on items like credit card debt or unnecessary bills.

For credit cards, seek out credit card offers with balance transfer promotions, switch your cards to a zero-balance offer, claim the promotional rewards and PAY OFF YOUR DEBT!

Then call up your utility companies and negotiate lower monthly bills. For example, you can save up to $54/month by switching to a cheaper wireless plan. It's frustrating to have to call customer service, but own your negotiation skills and work to cut at least $100 out of your monthly utility budget.

Communicating goals
Teamwork only happens when each member of the team knows what the goals are and how to achieve them. If you want a clean house every week, every person on the team needs to know how to define "clean," which actions achieve "clean" and when they need to complete those actions. Otherwise you end up with someone who thinks they've cleaned the bathroom but hasn't yet swept the floors.

More importantly, you need to own the skills of talking to your family about larger-scale goals. Everything you value, from education to sibling harmony, is actually a goal. If you never talk to your children about how to treat each other, or why homework is important, they'll never understand why the family goals are worth achieving.

Providing feedback
Lastly, you need to own the skill of providing feedback. Sometimes a short conversation is enough; other times you need to take disciplinary action. Just like a real business, make sure disciplinary measures are stated in advance and applied fairly and consistently; this is the best way to teach children that actions have appropriate consequences.

You need to provide appropriate feedback to your partner as well as your children. If your partner fails one part of the family goals, like regularly arriving late to family dinner or speaking disrespectfully about you or the kids, it's time to have a talk. Owning your skills means not letting anger and resentments linger.


Do you have other "family business" tips or ideas for additional skills? Let us know in the comments.

3 Ways to Cut Costs Around the House

See these three children? They may be cute, but they each cost a lot of money to raise. Although I have not focused on it, I have shared a bit about how tough the past few years have been for my family financially. To sum it up, before we could fully recover from my husband losing his job two years prior, my husband lost his job again nearly 3 years ago, took out a student loan to go back to school to change his career path, and eventually found a job in the right field. However, it was not quite enough to cover our household expenses when combined with the income I make working from home. That is probably a story that you have heard too many times in recent years.

One of the steps we have taken to better our situation is get a home loan modification.  It took us a year and a half to actually get our mortgage company to help us, but eventually they did.  Although we do not generate any new credit card debts, we do have some very old ones that we had to stop paying on because of our circumstances.  We also have a lot of medical bills hanging over our heads, and need to put together a plan to pay off debt once we are in a more stable financial situation.  To help us feel like we are being proactive in the present, there are a few household expenses we are trying to reduce.


3 Ways to Cut Household Spending . . .

1.  Drink filtered water - Our family of 5 was accustomed to drinking spring water that we purchased by the case and by the gallon.  Although it took us a little while to get use to it, I have to say 85% of the water we drink now is from our countertop water filtration system.  Our children have sets of reusable bottles that I keep filled for them.  We are lucky that our tap water is safe and tastes just fine.  I would say we save around $300/year by doing this.

2.  Switch from cable to streaming video - We have not done this yet, but are seriously considering replacing our cable service with streaming video on each television in the house.  Each box would allow that television to access video from services like Netflix and Hulu Plus.  My husband estimates that we would save about $840/year if we do this.

3.  Bringing lunches from home - My husband can buy lunch for just over $5 from the cafeteria at work, but he could bring lunch and cut that cost by quite a bit.  Even if he picked out some quality frozen entrees on sale instead of taking leftovers, the cost would be about half.  It costs my son $2.50 to buy lunch from school.  Packing a lunch for him from home would also cost about half of that.  Taking lunches from home is something  my husband and 2nd grader already do, but only about 50% of the time.  We can certainly do better.  Between the two of them, even if they only saved $10 a week, that would be $520/year.

I know that saving $1500 in one year is not going to significantly help us pay off bills faster, but it is the difference between our children being able to take part in playing soccer and taking a dance class or not.  I think those experiences are worth a lot more than the amount of effort it takes to make those few changes.

If you have other ideas about how to cut costs around the house, I would love to hear them.