It’s Called Currency

Every day, you are exposed to hundreds if not thousands of marketing messages. You see and/or hear them on TV, on the computer, as you drive down the road, as you browse through the newspaper or magazines. They are literally everywhere. Are you even aware that they are there? Maybe not. To you, I say, “Consumer be aware!” which is my version of the latin “Caveat Emptor” you may have heard before. Its translation is “buyer beware” and it is often used as a reminder that the buyer has the responsibility for educating themselves when making purchases. But we are consumers more than just buyers and we have a personal responsibility for noticing when we are being marketed to. [Read more →]

Tags: education, marketing, spending less // Add Comment »

Maintenance is a word usually prefaced by “car” or “auto” for most of us. We maintain our vehicles with regular oil changes because we know that if we don’t, our transportation will be sitting on the side of the road getting us nowhere. The added benefits of regular maintenance is long-term savings: fewer trips to the mechanic, longer vehicle life, higher resale or trade-in value.

What about other areas of maintenance? [Read more →]

Tags: education, saving, spending less // Add Comment »

As I was running through some headlines for online news articles yesterday, I was pleased to find some that related to topics I’ve talked about here in the past couple of weeks. For instance, on the subject of layaway, which was my November 2 topic,  Sears is reinstating its layaway program starting tomorrow. Of course, they’ve got restrictions so you can’t put a computer or refrigerator on layaway, but something’s better than nothing, right? Perhaps they’ll add options for those items if the program turns out to be popular.

I also discovered [Read more →]

Tags: budgeting, cashflow management, education, spending less // Add Comment »

Most of us grew up in households and were educated in schools where we didn’t learn about money. We were never taught how to budget, how to balance a checkbook, how to save for the future, how to invest for retirement, or any of the other “money basics” that help us to get along in the world. For the most part, we have stumbled through those lessons ourselves, making our own mistakes and hopefully learning something along the way. Fortunately, we have the opportunity to break that cycle with our children. [Read more →]

Tags: education // 2 Comments »

Have you noticed that the Sunday paper just doesn’t have the wealth of coupons that it used to? Back in the day, I was a mad coupon clipper. I looked forward to the hour I’d spend on a Sunday looking through the coupon flyers and cutting out the stack of gems buried within. I saved a good bit of money on my weekly grocery trips, especially when I could go on a double-coupon day. My personal best was probably in the neighborhood of $15 on a cartful.

Today, newspapers may have coupons, but they’re few and far between. [Read more →]

Tags: cashflow management, marketing, spending less // 1 Comment »

Barter, verb: to exchange in trade, as one commodity for another.

When we were kids, we all did it without a second thought. We would trade our marbles or pencils or troll dolls. We’d trade our sandwich for his cookies. We’d offer up those things we didn’t want or value as much for those that we did. But then we grew up, got allowances and then jobs, and we started trading our cash for everything we wanted instead of our devalued stuff. [Read more →]

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This can be a tough question. After all, most people just “pay the bills” and get on with it. But what about those times when money is tight or you’ve got an especially large bill that’s going to affect your monthly finances more than usual? Does food rank above entertainment in your spending plan? Does transportation come before recreation? Do shelter and utility payments get made before you pay on any credit cards? Are you properly prioritizing your spending, or is your money spent in whatever category is yelling today?

At the top of your list, as your highest priority, should be your rent or mortgage payment, followed by the various utilities that keep your shelter comfortable, and then food. [Read more →]

Tags: budgeting, cashflow management, priorities // 1 Comment »

The cost of communication can be remarkably high these days. Many US households have both landline and wireless phones, often duplicating services and the charges for them. It’s time to take a long hard look at what you’re paying for, decide if you really need it, and determine who is the best provider for what you need. [Read more →]

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I’d probably have to say that the first book I read—really read—on money was Financial Peace Revisited by Dave Ramsey. At that point, I’d already been through a first marriage and divorce that had left me with over $30,000 in debt to pay off. I was in my second marriage, all the previous debt had been paid off, and my new husband and I were trying to make sure we were on the road to sound money management. We’d both stumbled along until then, gleaning what we could from family and friends, trying desperately to learn from other people’s mistakes as well as our own so we wouldn’t be repeating them. [Read more →]

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You probably think of budgets as straight jackets for your money, that putting down on paper (or into a computer spreadsheet) just where your money is going to go each month is too confining, too restrictive.  But like water, money needs to flow. If you don’t clearly define where it will go, whether it’s a holding tank for a future need, or directly into the current of your daily spending, your money will just slip through the cracks, dripping out of your life.

One simple concept that made budgeting much less confining for me is the “blow money” category. [Read more →]

Tags: budgeting, cashflow management // 1 Comment »