Budget Blog

Remember when you were a kid spending your allowance at the candy store? There's just something about having a pocket full of cash, isn't there? It just wasn't right if you left the store with any money. ALL of it had to be spent - after all, you worked hard for that money, why not treat yourself to the max! However, with cash, there is no automated record of what it was spent on and thus less accountability. That's why I use a debit card whenever I can. Using a debit card allows the following conveniences: No need to carry cash [...]

If you're like most people, when you get to the end of the month, you wonder where all the money went. This feeling comes from not having a record of where your money is going. Several times a day we spend money and assume we'll remember it, but at the end of the month, it's just not possible to remember all the little purchases, and they add up to a lot. That's why tracking your spending is so important. It makes you accountable to yourself. When you know you'll need to record purchases, you think twice about making it. It [...]

Marriage, debt and moving your home are ranked among the top most stressful life events. A wedding often combines all three into a well-planned panic attack. Budget trends for weddings have been steadily going up, despite the economic downturn. In fact, the average wedding in the US can cost up to $27,000. There is no short supply of suggestions to make a wedding more budget-friendly, and rightfully so! Imagine what other things can be done with $27,000 to support your new married life. Since disagreements over money are still the number one reason for divorce, a couple approaching matrimony would do [...]

I have a treadmill that most often is our largest and most expensive clothes hanger. However, I do get into spurts of desire to get in shape again and use it. Here' s what it teaches me about money: Owning a treadmill makes me feel like I am doing something about my health, but if I don't use it, it's no use. Only regular, consistent use of the treadmill will keep me in shape. Same goes for your budget. If I turn on the treadmill and it automatically goes.. it does me NO GOOD unless I get on and use it. [...]

Much concern has been raised by consumers about online bank security risks - specifically using 3rd party money aggregators, such as Mint.com and Yodlee, which automatically connect to your bank and try to track all for your accounts in one place. People are asking questions like, "is mint.com safe?" If we ignore the reliability issues (which are many) and look only at the security concerns, here's the problem in a nutshell: When you sign up for one of these services, you have to give them your online banking username and password (credentials) so they can go and collect the information [...]

One of the benefits of signing up with CalendarBudget is that it makes creating a spending plan and sticking to it a part of your daily routine. How does it accomplish this? With the revolutionary Habit Installer system, a series of 21 short videos and tutorials sent to your inbox every day for three weeks. My wife Debra and I used to blame the economy, our age, or our lack of effort for our failure to create a workable spending plan. None of these factors was the main cause of our lack of results. Instead, we had to shift how [...]

Years ago, my wife and I came to the conclusion that slow and steady is probably the best bet when it comes to formulating a spending plan that will allow us to build wealth and riches. It takes consistency and learning to have a truly good wealth building system to fund retirement, especially one that’s going to be as spectacular as ours, and we want to make our funds last (in case we live to be 100) Below are some of the reasons why getting rich slowly is the better bet: It enables us to have cash available for when [...]

My family consists of five persons: my wife and I, and our three children. When the financial crisis hit us, and we ended up “upside down” on our home mortgage, we knew we had to create a spending plan that included low-cost but nutritious food. We quickly found out that feeding our family on a budget would call for proper groundwork and restraint (on my wife’s part). Fortunately, I received some good advice from other dads who are feeding their families on $100, $50, and as low as $45 per week. I’m happy to share these ideas with you! 3 Tips [...]

Owning a house has become cheaper than renting in twelve major cities, including Orlando, Miami, Chicago and Atlanta, now that interest rates are floating around the 4% mark on a 30-year fixed mortgage. “Home prices and mortgage rates have fallen so far that the monthly cost of owning a home is more affordable than at any point in the past fifteen years and is less expensive than renting in a growing number of cities,” states the Wall Street Journal. Should you include owning a home in your spending plan for the near future? Here are the questions we asked ourselves when we [...]