Budget Musings

Archive for November, 2007

Scenario: You have a positive balance at the beginning of the month, and a positive balance at the end of the month. Your monthly budget seems to indicate that income is more than expenses. Everything looked great. But you had overdraft fees charged to your account because it went into the negative during the month somehow. Grrrr… How can this happen?

Read the rest of this entry »

Good question. Once again, the answer lies in interest rates (and your comfort level with debt). Generally the best answer is a mix of the two options.

Here’s how it works: Read the rest of this entry »

You should not go into debt for purchases (except for things that appreciate in value such as a house or an education). All other purchases (including big items like vehicles or expensive electronics, such as a computer or home theater system) should be purchased with saved money. A discussion on this topic can he found here.

Thus, to fund your goals (aka. purchases) you need to plan for it. A budget is your best tool. Since CalendarBudget specializes in helping you plan for your goals, I’ll describe how to do this using CalendarBudget, however, any budget, even one on paper, will be helpful in achieving your goal.

The first thing to do is Read the rest of this entry »

Its prime Christmas shopping season! Although I’m more of a ‘week before Christmas’ shopper, many people I know are out hunting for the perfect gift. Here are some ideas for keeping your Christmas shopping in line with your budget and perhaps, some innovative and inexpensive ideas.

My family has a great tradition between my 2 brothers and my father to make the most difficult to open gift. This typically involved steel, concrete, wire coat-hangers and other assorted impervious materials. Often the costs of “wrapping” the gift can exceed the cost of the gift itself, but the joy of opening the gift is exceedingly great. We use old recycling things, such as old broken computers… as evidenced by my joy in opening 2006′s gift from my brother.

We often end up giving each other tools which we can use to open the gifts but also use throughout the year. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s lots of people taking sides on this issue. Should I have a separate bank account from my spouse and divide up the financial responsibilities?

This question is best answered on an individual basis, as each person’s needs and situation are different. For my simple financial picture, this comes down to an issue of trust. Do I trust my spouse with the family finances (and does she trust me)? If trust is present, its certainly easier to manage bills, income, and the overall financial picture with 1 account. Without that level of trust, then perhaps separate accounts make sense. From my perspective, having a joint account is somewhat of a comment on the health of a marriage. Having a joint account also allows each partner to see where the money is going and can inquire if one person is spending more than what was agreed. Also – there are legal considerations if one of the joint account members die. If the account is not joint, the balance may be frozen until lawyers get through all the mumbo-jumbo of the will and survival rights. Read the rest of this entry »

Every month has some expenditures which are “unexpected”. Most budgets I’ve seen have the notorious “Miscellaneous” entry, usually one in each month for $50 or $100. Its amazing to think that we routinely have unpredictable expenses that add up to that much. Usually these miscellaneous entries end up being impulse purchases such as snacks or drinks while you are out. These type of expenditures, grouped together under a single budget item called “Misc” are hard to track and don’t give you a clear picture of your spending. Read the rest of this entry »

My wife is the editor of a small community newsletter, which has a distribution of about 80 adults. Recently, while thinking of win-win scenarios for marketing, I thought of an idea to get us a free dinner. Here’s how it goes. She calls a local restaurant, and tells them she is the editor of a newsletter that has a distribution of about 80 adults, 30 children and about 20 teens. She explains she is starting a new section called “Date Night on a Shoestring”. As part of this section, we’d like to enter a review of their establishment and asks if they would be willing to donate a meal for a couple so we can write a proper review. We get a free meal, they get a free review and advertising to a highly qualified audience — everyone wins! I am confident this will work at almost any restaurant.

Any other win-win scenarios you can think of that get you free stuff?

As I understand it (from listening to “The Secret” DVD, commentaries section,) the inspiration that triggered the author to write the book and make the movie began with the book “The Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace Wattles. I’ve begun reading this book. Despite being almost 100 years old, it has a very compelling beginning.

“Whatever may be said in praise of poverty, the fact remains that it is not possible to live a really complete or successful life unless one is rich. No one can rise to his greatest possible height in talent or soul development unless he has plenty of money, for to unfold the soul and to develop talent he must have many things to use, and he cannot have these things unless he has money to buy them with. Read the rest of this entry »

Most household users (not corporate/business) people want to maintain a budget so they can plan for expenditures and ensure they can survive on their income. CalendarBudget allows people to do exactly that and we want to expand its capability to include some innovative reporting. Most budget programs have a list of reports, some of which are not revelant or even useful. In order to keep CalendarBudget ahead of the game, I’d like to hear from you regarding what kind of reports/graphs will actually be useful in planning/implementing your budget?

I’ll send the best response a cheque for $1

The Toronto Star had a great article today on teaching kids about money and how this teaching should be part of the school curriculum.

While education would be a HUGE improvement on the current situation, what’s missing from this article plan is the poor example set by parents. The sad fact is that kids learn most of their consumption habits from their parents. That includes many parents bad habits of getting whatever you want right away, on credit rather than having the self-discipline to save first. Read the rest of this entry »