There’s nothing like having a great Christmas full of happiness, family and giving and then having that fire dowsed like a sugar high crash by the realization that you have a big debt that’s been multiplied by Christmas gifts.
Often it won’t manifest itself until after New Years since we’re still in vacation/party mode. But don’t let a looming sense of debt ruin your vacation and dampen your spirits. The way to overcome that feeling is to put forth at least a minimal effort to understand where you stand financially, what your plans are for the immediate future and be on a plan to execute those plans.
This is where a budgeting system helps. It will ensure you know where your money is going and where you’ll be in the near future. Once you have that assurance, your mind will automatically stop worrying about it. And if you ARE in trouble, you can take action before you make things worse.
There are lots of budgeting systems out there from paper and pencil to fully automated systems. CalendarBudget has been designed to meet the needs of budgeters to alleviate that guilty feeling and help you get on your financial track.?? Try it today - its free while in beta period - and can get you on the right path.? If CalendarBudget is not for you, at least sit down and organize your finances so you have a plan.? It can take less than 2 hours to get a fairly accurate picture of your finances, and its time very well spent.
First of all - the rule of thumb is NEVER buy a new car unless you have money to burn. Vehicles devalue so quickly, the financing usually leaves you paying for something that is not even worth the remaining balance you owe. In fact, as soon as you drive the car off the dealers lot you can take a few $1000 off the price you just paid. 0% financing may make is look more tempting, but its still a bad deal.
Now, having said that, I just bought a new car 
But I did so with my eyes wide open. You may recall from a previous blog that my van died. We decided at the time to try living without owning a vehicle. We tried the experiment for 3 weeks. The money savings were great, but here’s what we found. We were spending up to 1 hour/day trying to arrange for borrowing a vehicle to get our family (7 of us) to the places we needed to be at. That time (and to a less degree, the stress of feeling like a burden to those we were constantly asking) was something we didn’t fully consider. The time I would have been working was spent thinking of who to ask, making calls, leaving messages, returning calls, worrying about not getting to meetings I had, etc…
So in the end we decided that although we could live without a vehicle, it was causing more pain (time loss, stress) that it was saving us (financially). In fact this was triggered by a friend who discovered my situation and suggest a vehicle and described some financing I hadn’t heard of before. It seems car companies are desperate to sell vehicles these days. So, in the end we bought a new car - a Kia Rondo 7-seater.
Here’s why I did it: More…
Here’s a portion of the email sent to existing users:
We at CalendarBudget love you and your feedback.
We are happy to announce that we have entered into a Beta period (for a few months) during which time access will be completely free.
We are making this move to introduce a number of new features such as auto-consolidation from bank transaction exports, tutorials and other great things that will make managing your finances even easier. The beta period will give us sufficient time to ensure that these important features are working properly and to incorporate your feedback before charging you for them.
We hope to get through this beta period soon (around February/March) and deliver these high quality features you’ve been asking for.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions for CalendarBudget.
Now’s your chance -
sign up today and really give it a test drive for several months for free, and enjoy all the new features being constantly added.
I came across this diagram today, depicting the process of financial planning. Following these simple steps you can ensure that your current and future finances are and will be on a firm foundation.
Over the next 6 blog entries, I’ll go into detail for each point and discuss how we can plan for our future.
Feel free to add any insight you wish to the process.
I started writing a few articles on Personal Finance for eZineArticles.com:
While researching these articles, I found a plethora of information on Personal Finance - articles written by anyone who self-proclaims to be an expert. Some are of high quality, some are not. I found most to be rather vague, having perhaps one useful idea surrounded by lots of filler words.
Even so-called authority sites, well-known magazines, large providers of Personal Finance tools and services have really weak ideas and material on getting down to the actual business of budgeting and living within your means.
Anyone have some good sources of personal finance ideas/material that others can benefit from?
Someone asked me the other day if I thought a recession could be avoided by people having better personal finance management habits (having savings, living within their means, etc). I’m no economist, but I thought the question was interesting. I responded that it would very likely postpone or even eliminate recessions, reasoning that if people actually had some savings, and were living within their means, they could keep the economy afloat during cyclical recessionary periods.
With proper savings, you can even lose your job for a period of time and have no change in your standard of living. This kind of savings would help keep the economy going during hard times, but of course it would require an overwhelming majority of people to be doing the right thing financially, which is definitely not the case. But it leads one to think that in a way, recession is the punishment or resultant effect of society’s poor money habits.
What do you think? Can we avoid recessions with better money management habits?
It’s so thrilling to see the assessment of how much of your hard earned money you’re going to get back from the government on your Tax Return. The question is what to do with the money?
Well I know what I want to do (a big shopping spree for house renovations, new computer, vacation, plus some other items on the wish list), but then I know that’s not really what I should do. More…
The first round of reports/charts are available in CalendarBudget.
These reports will give you a deeper understanding of your spending habits and help you plan where you can make improvements or celebrate successes.
There are 3 different reports to choose from: More…
Budget Musings’ first monthly newsletter is complete and available at:
http://calendarbudget.com/Budget/newsletter/newsletter.html
Its a great article all about working with a financial planner, written by Carolyn Johnston - CFP (Certified Financial Planner). This is one to bookmark and share with your friends.
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