June 29th, 2009
Top news for close to a year has been economics, whether it was the drastic rise in oil and gas prices, the housing crisis, corporations needing bailouts, or unemployment. We have been focusing on our wallets for a long time and we have been scared about the future all at the same time.
When you think about history, you have to realize that money comes and goes, sometimes in drastic ways. For example, after World War I in Germany, inflation was so extreme that people used paper money for wallpaper. Money was worthless. Stock market crashes have also caused people to lose a lot of money as well.
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June 22nd, 2009
One would think that if you balance your check book and you are a few pennies off, no big deal. After all, what’s a few cents between you and the bank?
It can turn out to be a lot, in fact. When you balance an account, you are checking off both deposits and withdrawals. In the end, there should be no difference between your results and those of the bank.
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June 15th, 2009
Let’s begin with a pizza. A large pizza, by the time it gets to your house along with the bottle of soda and a tip for the driver, will cost around twenty dollars. If you put it on a credit card that you don’t pay off immediately, it will cost you up to 30% in interest per year in interest on top of the original cost.
In contrast, a fresh bake-it-yourself pizza from the grocery and a 2 liter bottle of grocery store pop might be less than ten dollars. A frozen pizza and a 2 liter bottle of soda could set you back a total of five dollars.
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June 8th, 2009
How much clothing do you really need? How many things have been lurking in your closet, still sporting their price tags?
Most of the time, shopping for clothing is about something else besides keeping reasonably warm and decent. It’s about the joy of owning something new, a way of keeping sorrow or frustration at bay, competition with others for the newest and best, or the thrill of the hunt for bargains. These are all fine reasons for shopping for clothing, unless you need to cut back on spending. If you are unemployed or underemployed or deeply in debt, it’s time to develop a new attitude about clothing.
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June 1st, 2009
Often there are things we want to do that cost money and perhaps we don’t have that money right now. Being on a budget does not mean abandoning some of these activities; instead it means changing how you do them.
Exercise: it’s nice to go to a gym and use their equipment, but unfortunately gym memberships cost money. One alternative is to see if you are eligible to use a free gym somewhere. For example, some universities make their equipment available to community members or alumni. A second alternative is to find ways of exercising at home, such as walking or running.
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May 26th, 2009
One of the easiest ways to cut spending is to change food shopping habits. Here are some ways to do that.
When you enter a grocery store, you are beginning a game played between you and the grocery. The object of the game for them is to get you to buy a lot of stuff. The object of the game for you is to recognize and defeat their little psychological ploys. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 18th, 2009
One of the problems for the budget-challenged is that unless we can see big gains, we get frustrated. Saving $25 a month seems like chump change and hardly worth the effort because it takes four whole months just to get $100. So, why bother saving? Read the rest of this entry »
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