Analyze the payments you are making for all your credit cards every month. Ask yourself if you really need the number of credit cards that you own. If not surrender some and have as less as necessary.

Also make the monthly bills on time to keep a clean record of your credit score. Make use of offers given by the credit card companies. Do not fall victim for marketing gimmicks and buy a credit card on an offer as the APY might be a lot higher compared to the traditional ones without offer.

Determine how much credit card debt you owe to the company and start allotting a considerable amount every month.

Thats it!!! We are done for the day. This will not take more than an hour to analyze. So you can go to sleep with a satisfaction that you have completed more than 50% in your attempt to fix your finance.

Take time to analyze if the account you hold in a bank solves your purpose. If you have just a checking account, set up a Savings account and start putting some cash each month into it. An online high yielding savings account is the best option to earn some extra cash.

Make it compulsory to have just 2-3 bank accounts to solve your purpose and not more in order to make your finance simple.

Make use of setting up automatic payment options to pay your bills and debt installments on time. Ask the bank for their time to time offers and make use of them to your benefit.

Isn’t it simple? Yes thats all you need to do for today.

Day 1:

Today is the first day in our ritual. Lets spend half hour and take the most important step. Calculate our personal net worth. All we have to do today is dig up all old documents or if you have  great memory, sit with a diary to write down all your assets, its value and then the value of the liabilities and finally subtract the liability from the assets. Bhoom!!! You have just calculated your net worth.

Yes thats was simple isn’t? Yes thats all we are going to do today. Tomorrow we will take our next step. Till then relax!!! We are surely going to fix your finances in 7 days.

Here is a list of things you could do to reduce your spending:

Sell the Items you don’t Use Anymore:

Find out the items that you have not been using for a long time and sell them. It might be your old books, CDs or even a home appliance. Sell them, create some more space at your home and enjoy the free space and money that comes out of selling.

Save on Energy:

Replace light bulbls by CFLs and LEDs .

Unplug aplliances when they are not working.

Switch off lights and fans when you leave the room.

Seal the air leaks in your home.

Do a regular maintenance check on all appliances.

Save on Cell Phone:

Unless you have a valid reason to use cell phone heavily, replace your plan to pay as you go. Try using Skype whenever possible and reduce the frequency of using your cell phone.

Buy the Regular Stuff in Bulk:

Be it oil, soaps or even your body spray, if you are something regularly, buy it in bulk for it comes cheap.

Make use of a Library:

The next time you want to watch a  movies or read a book, think of signing up for a library membership.

]]> http://www.8000credit.org/926/reduce-spending-sacrificing/feed/ 0 http://www.8000credit.org/924/5-blogs-recommend-read/ http://www.8000credit.org/924/5-blogs-recommend-read/#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:30:28 +0000 Teena http://www.8000credit.org/?p=924 I am a huge fan of  finance blogs and never fail to update myself time and again with what experts have to save. So i thought why not share with my readers 5 blogs i think that would be useful for them to save money?

So here we go

My Good Cents

For those who want to be informed of shopping offers, deals, best buys, coupons and give aways, this blog is just perfect and has a lot to offer.

Simple Dollar Truth

This is one of my most favorite Personal Finance blogs and i simply love their content.

Frugal Dad

This is another favorite personal finance blog with a lot of useful information, interesting and humorous articles.

Lower My Energy Bill

If your looking for ways to save money on your utility bills then this is the right place to see.

Hillbilly Housewife

If you are looking for delicious recipes to be made at a cheap cost then there are many mouthwatering frugal recipes here.

This is my list. What about yours?

Are you still using a brick and mortar bank like i do? Then here are some tips that might help you.

1. Ask for better interest rates, enquire whether there is an account similar to your existing one, with better interest rate.
2. Do not forget to ask about free checking because its not advisable to waste money on service charges and other similar fees.
3. Enquire if the bank has a new website through which you could automate all your payments. This way you would never miss paying any bill.
4. Keep yourself updated with any new promotion that the bank might be running.

Have some more tips to add to the list? let us know.

Talking about money to your significant other is an important part of your relationship, if you are planning for a future together. Here are some things you must remember while talking about money to your partner.

Take it Slow:

As it is a sensitive issue, take it slow and steady. If you think your partner is spending too much, instead of staying ‘You’re spending a lot’ , its better to ask if she/he has thought about setting up a budget. It might take sometime for your partner to adjust to tracking his/her spendings, but do not give up at the same time do not try to impose your ideas.

Keep money out of your every conversation:

It is not advisable to talk about money all the time and give your partner a feeling that you are obsessed with money.Talk about money when you both are calm and composed to avoid any quarrels arising because of money.

Be a Model:

Stay in control of your money and be an inspiration to your partner. Instead of putting an end to all your enjoyments, you could both save for a fun trip together.

When Nothing Works, Bring in another Friend:

If you think, the situation is out of control you could ask the person close to your significant other to talk to him/her about money. This might help especially if your partner has a great respect for the person you choose to talk to him/her about the finances.

Remember that money can bring in a great development as well as tear down everything, so act wisely. Changes take time, so exercise patience.

1

Use the internet wisely. There are various websites that offer abundant information about basics of stocks, bonds, insurance, tax and anything you wnat to know. Make use of it. Reading any of these regularly for atleast 10 minutes a day can increase your knowledge gradually.

2

Subscribe through Google reader to personal finance blogs. For example by subscribing to 8000credit, you would know when new posts are published through your Google reader and you do not have to visit the site. This way you can keep track of multiple sites in one page.

3

Invest on Books like

* I will teach you to be rich

* Rich Dad, Poor Dad

* The Automatic Millionaire

* One Up on Wall Street

* The Millionaire Next Door

You can even get these books from a library or at a cheaper rate from second hand book shops.

Do not forget to practice and preach what you have learnt.

]]> http://www.8000credit.org/803/personal-finance-books-beginners/feed/ 0 http://www.8000credit.org/607/stop-worrying-start-saving/ http://www.8000credit.org/607/stop-worrying-start-saving/#comments Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:14:53 +0000 Teena http://www.8000credit.org/?p=607 An article in Wired Magazine  mentioned about personal metric devices to improve one’s health like the Nike+ipod kit which could keep track of all the details and the statistics of your capacity to run..For all it measured was the time your foot touched the ground. Now how could that have helped? How could mere statistics help?

Let us be honest. How many of us follow our chores sincerely, or let us say, on a given time when we  are assigned a job ,given a deadline, when we are  getting  no extra incentive for our job, and most important ,when we are  quite sure that there is no one observing us, how many of us do our jobs sincerely?

Well barring just a few I suppose the answer is quite obvious.

In 1920 the managing authorities   at the Hawthorne Works factory also had the same query in mind when they decided to take some measures  to improve production. They realized that the lighting at the place of work was not adequate. The lighting was improved. Now the workers could assemble the parts faster. With the speed of the work increased, the production increased. The authorities were satisfied, so they were given extra breaks. With greater breaks   their efficiency further increased.

After some time the management decided to   go back to the original working conditions. But to their amazement they found that the changes had not affected the quality of the work. The production was still high. What could have been the cause? And they realized the extra lighting had done the trick.  The workers felt  they were under constant vigilance. So even after the changes in work conditions were withdrawn, the workers continued to work at the same pace. It was here that the idea originated .The    Hawthorne effect  as it was named ,originated  from the idea that any phenomenon being observed  will change just by the act of observation. This  was also called the “observer effect”.

This fact holds true even while handling our finances. How many of us spend compulsively?  Most of us, and how many of us really need the things we purchase?

If we keep a track of our purchases we realize that most of the times we end up buying stuff, we do not need. Instead of brooding over or justifying our expenses, just keeping a track   might help.

Today our problems have been simplified for all of us.  Our solutions are just a click away. If you are facing difficulties in managing your finances ,the solutions are right here. We have online aggregation sites to help us

Quicken Online:  They maintain interactive charts where all your transactions are categorized automatically, thus providing an overall perspective of your expenses.

They maintain a record of your monthly expenses.

Just imagine all your average expenses for any particular category can be accessed in a jiffy, giving you  the ratio of your income to your expenses. This curbs unnecessary expenses thus focusing on one particular category. Isn’t that wonderful.

We can see all our accounts in one place. No more multiple passwords to be remembered

It is 100% free.

They maintain your online banking information which includes keeping a check on your investments, credit cards payments and your loans.

Yodlee moneycentre:   Lost track of your expenses? Is your budget getting out of control? Or do you fear your financial information can be hacked? Well Yodlee moneycenter is your solution. All your information is safeguarded by latest security technology, and is password protected. It maintains reports which are pre-categorized for you to watch, and analyze your expenses. It sets your budget and your spending limits. So you see, your financial power lies in your hands.

Mint.com: Are you trying to categorize your expenses and going crazy? Well stop worrying. Let Mint.com do it for you. It is a budgeting site which automatically categorizes and graphs all your expenses the moment you spend .Just a glance, and you know how intelligently you have spent. Safe and secure it has been widely acclaimed.

So we see, these sites act like custodians of our finances. They   watch where we spend, and that helps us in curbing unnecessary expenses. We learn to keep track of our expenses, start spending sensibly and end up saving money And after practicing this kind of a curb, we become vigilant.

Just like the Nike+ipod users who wish to keep running and  improving their  statistics even after  they  have discontinued using a gadget,. Which kept a constant watch on them.